


Home Is Where The Heart Is (And We're All Fucked)

by HollowpointHeart



Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Devi D./Tenna (JtHM)/Tess R. (background), Gen, M/M, Masturbation, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 07:42:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 46,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12859953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HollowpointHeart/pseuds/HollowpointHeart
Summary: Edgar didn't sign up for this. All he wanted was to help a friend of a friend with her coffee shop-bookstore hybrid, and now he's stuck with five of the weirdest people he's ever met. Still, they seem nice enough, and they probably won't kill him in his sleep. He might even consider it a good thing if it weren't for a certain punk asshole who won't stop flirting with him.Jimmy absolutely did sign up for this, but that doesn't mean he has to like it. He'd expected being a werewolf with Johnny would be romantic or some shit, but it's actually painfully boring, and Johnny doesn't even like him. Edgar's hot though, so maybe this werewolf thing won't be so bad after all.





	1. Gay Is Not A Synonym For Stupid

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to [Chokopoppo](http://www.chokopoppo.tumblr.com) for conning me into the weirdest, most self indulgent thing i've ever written. I'm pretty sure this all started because of a typo and me getting really bored at work. No promises on consistent updates b/c i'm a student and life is a nightmare hellscape of papers and finals. I'll update the tags as needed so keep an eye on those for anything that could be upsetting. Thanks for reading and please don't forget to comment!

Edgar squints at the address Tenna had given him. She’d told him she needed help renovating an old bookshop, but this place looks like a strong breeze could knock it over. Even at two stories, it leans drunkenly against the brick building next to it, and the butter yellow paint on the siding has flaked off in great patches. It had probably been cheerful back in the day, but now, with the blinds drawn, it looks as depressing as the rest of the street. A cardboard sign hanging from the door announces that the shop is "Closed 4 Repairs." The message is repeated underneath in Spanish.

Still, the address is right. Edgar knocks. From inside, he hears a faint crash, muffled shouting, and stomping footsteps. He gulps and adjusts his glasses.

When the door opens, Edgar’s first thought is he didn’t know hair could be quite that purple. The woman peering at him through the gap in the door is corpse pale and severe in an ageless way. Her gaze is fierce behind badly smeared eyeliner, like she’d rubbed her eyes without thinking. 

“What.” It’s more command than question, but she’s not hostile. Still, something about her has Edgar taking an instinctive step back.

“I, uh, Edgar,” he stutters and mentally slaps himself. “I’m Edgar.”

The woman opens her mouth but is interrupted by a trilling “Edgar!” Tenna appears behind the woman, eyes bright and hair trembling with barely contained excitement. She throws the door all the way open with a blinding grin. The other woman rolls her eyes but otherwise looks resigned.

It’s been months since Edgar’s seen Tenna, but she looks exactly like he remembers. They’d met volunteering at the Halloween craft weekend put on by the elementary school in the school district Edgar taught in. The turnout had been shit, and the two of them had spent most of the time huddled in the corner with hot cocoa, bonding over art while hawking PTA moms ran the show. Tenna had teased Edgar for his fondness for the Renaissance and classical sculpture, and he’d grinned at her enthusiasm for dadaism and all things horror.

She has the same spark in her eyes now as she’d had over eighties slasher films, and Edgar can’t help but smile back at her. With a surprisingly strong grip, she grabs his arm and the other woman’s hand and drags them inside.

“Come on!” She says. “You’ve gotta tell Johnny this is so a good idea!’

“What am I advocating for?” Edgar asks. As he’s dragged through sheet covered bookshelves, the feeling of trepidation in his stomach reminds him of the time Tenna had informed him he needed to get out more and set him up on a disastrous blind date.

“Tenna wants to add a coffee bar up front,” the purple haired woman says. Almost as an afterthought, she says, “I’m Devi.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Edgar says, not entirely sure if he means it. Devi smirks like she knows this.

Voices float from the back, and Edgar strains to make out what they’re saying. There’s at least one more woman and one man, and neither of them sound happy. Devi swears and tugs out of Tenna’s grip to storm towards a cracked open door.

“Suck my dick, Tess!” the man’s voice shouts. A loud crash-thud follows.

Devi throws open the door. “I’ve been gone for thirty seconds!”

A woman modeling the latest in Victorian funeral wear, Edgar assumes she’s Tess, has the decency to look sheepish and pushes her glasses up her nose. The man sprawled on the floor does not. Piercings riddle his scowling face, and even though he’s wearing at least as much eyeliner as Devi, he looks barely older than a teenager. The overstuffed armchair and book next to him paint a fairly clear picture of what happened, but the man still glares at Devi.

“She threw a book at me!” He points at Tess.

“I wonder why,” Devi says flatly.

An unnerving, high pitched giggle comes from the far corner, and Edgar realizes there’s a third person in the room, standing behind the rickety desk. The man seems caught somewhere between shadow and flesh, a wisp of smoke with enormous eyes. His delicate frame and brooding posture combined with his dark clothes give him the look of an underfed raven. 

“Fuck off,” the man on the floor says and hoists himself to his feet. He’s lanky and slim, and when he perches on the arm of the chair, he lifts his chin as though daring someone to tell him to sit like a normal person. His pale eyes catch Edgar’s, and a lazy smile curls his lips.

“Who’s this?” he asks, sounding bored and disinterested in the answer. His eyes never leave Edgar though, trailing over him like Edgar’s a frog on a dissection table.

“This is Edgar,” Tenna says, and Edgar is grateful for the distraction. “He’s gonna help us redecorate!”

Both men make protesting noises, but Devi cuts them off with a sharp “Hey!” and moves closer to the center of the room. She’s easily the most muscular of any of them and cuts an imposing figure, a military officer in punk’s clothing.

“Edgar is here to help, and it’s not up for debate,” Devi says, and Edgar’s sort of surprised when the two men shut up. “Now introduce yourselves. He already knows me and Tenna.”

The man on the chair gives Devi an incredulous look. “What is this, kindergarten? Should I tell him my favorite color and subject too?”

“If you want,” Devi says coolly.

“Whatever,” the man says and looks back at Edgar, positively leering. “Name’s Jimmy. I’m a cancer, I like long walks on the beach, and in high school my favorite class was sex ed.” He winks dramatically, and Edgar wonders if he could make it out of the building before anyone caught him.

Probably not. Tenna’s still within arm’s reach, and Devi looks like she could catch and pin him without breaking a sweat.

“Lovely,” Edgar says and musters up the same dry indifference he feels when students hit on him. “Anyone else?”

“Johnny,” the man in the corner says. “Friends call me Nny. And just ignore Jimmy, that’s what the rest of us do.”

A hurt look flits across Jimmy’s face before being replaced by a sneer. Edgar doubts anyone else saw it. He sort of doubts he saw it.

“No one here calls you Nny,” says the woman who must be Tess. 

Johnny raises an eyebrow. “I know what I said.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m Tess. So you’re gonna help with the coffee bar?”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Edgar says with a shrug. “Tenna said something about persuading Johnny this was a good idea too.”

Johnny makes a disparaging noise in the back of his throat. “That’s because it’s a bad idea. It’ll cost more to make than it’ll make a profit. No one’s going to buy coffee from a bookstore when there’s three different chain coffee places within three blocks. People are sheep who stick with what they know.”

“And what Sunshine over there is failing to consider,” Tess snaps, and Edgar has the feeling this argument has been going on for a while, “is that lots of big bookstores have coffee shops in them because people love coffee and tea when they’re reading.”

“Yeah well this area isn’t exactly an area bursting with intellectual types, is it?” Johnny crosses his arms and straightens up. “No one’s going to _read_ when they could sit in front of a screen all day.”

“Devi’s grandma never had any trouble keeping this place open,” Tenna chimes in.

“Cellphones weren’t a thing when Devi’s grandma ran this dump.”

“Talk shit about my abuela’s shop again and I’ll kick your ass so hard your mom will feel it,” Devi says with a look that would’ve sent a stronger man than Edgar running, but Johnny’s fists curl like he’s preparing for a fight.

“Let’s leave the mothers and abuelas out of this!” Edgar says quickly. Five pairs of eyes snap to him, and, to his surprise, Johnny and Devi relax, though they don’t stop glaring at each other. The others keep looking at him with looks ranging from respect (Tess) to amusement (Jimmy).

Edgar can’t figure out what to make of this group. They don’t seem to be friends, at least not all of them. Tenna and Devi are friends, he’s pretty sure, but he’s not sure how the others fit. Jimmy and Johnny don’t seem to like the others or each other, and Tess is unreadable behind her glasses. If they _are_ friends, they’re certainly the weirdest bunch he’s ever met, and he works in a public high school. 

“Right,” Edgar says, because they’re all still staring at him like they’re expecting something. He fights the urge to rub his temples and pretends he’s helping students with a group project. “I think it’s pretty clear where everyone stands, except-” He turns to Jimmy, who until now has been watching everything with the delight of watching a game of tennis being played with a live grenade. “Jimmy, what do you think?”

Jimmy looks surprised and glances around as if expecting to see some other Jimmy that Edgar could be talking to. He recovers quickly and slips off the arm of the chair so he’s lounging obscenely with his one leg tossed over the arm and the other hanging off the front. Edgar refuses to look at him.

“Doesn’t really matter, does it?” Jimmy says. “If this is a democracy, I’ve been outvoted. But since it’s not a democracy, Devi the Dictator has made up her mind and we’re getting a coffee bar.”

“Well I don’t know if that’s-”

“It’s a little bit of a dictatorship,” Devi says. “My name’s on the lease, so I make the final decisions.”

Edgar does rub his temples this time. “Fine, fine. But Jimmy, you must still have an opinion on this, so let’s hear it.”

“Yeah, Jimmy,” Johnny says with mock sympathy, “usually you never shut up about what you think.”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you!” Jimmy starts to get out of the chair.

“Enough!” Edgar snaps, and wow, he really needs to stop underestimating the power of the teacher voice. Once again, everyone is staring at him, and Jimmy slumps back into his chair and crosses arms like a petulant teenager. “Jimmy, do you like the idea of a coffee bar, yes or no?”

Jimmy shoots him a baleful glare and shrugs. “Yeah, sure, I like it. ‘S gonna be hard as all fuck to get off the ground though.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Tess says, hands on her hips. She glares at Jimmy, and he actually looks a little apologetic.

“Alright,” Devi says, stopping another argument before it starts. “We’re doing the coffee bar, Johnny, shut up, you’ll live. Any questions?”

Edgar has several questions, but the only one that manages to stumble to the front of his mouth is, “Yeah, what am I doing here?”

Devi looks at him like he’s stupid. “Tenna said you know about interior design.”

Jimmy laughs. “That’s the faggiest shit I’ve ever heard.”

Every fist Edgar’s ever taken to the gut comes rushing back and he presses his lips together to stop himself from flinching away from the word. “I’m going to have to ask that you don’t use that word.”

“No, it’s okay,” Jimmy says, waving a hand dismissively. “I’m allowed to say fag ‘cause I’m a fucking fag.”

Edgar does flinch this time. He wants to run, to put as much distance between himself and this idiot _child_ as he can, but the weight of everyone else’s eyes pins him in place. 

“That’s not how reclaiming a slur works,” Edgar grits out from between clenched teeth. His jaw aches with the effort of not yelling. _Fag, fag, want to suck my dick, you fucking fag?_ bounces around his skull faster and faster until it sounds like a swarm of wasps stinging him over and over.

“Whatever.” Jimmy rolls his eyes, and Tess hisses “ _Jimmy!_ ” under her breath. Edgar forces himself to look at Tenna instead.

“I’m flattered you thought of me to help you,” he says, “but I don’t think I’m going to be able to stay. Sorry to disappoint.” He turns and walks out of the office before any of them can respond. He really is sorry that he won’t be able to help with the coffee bar, it sounds like a worthy investment, but he’s also certain he wouldn’t be able to help Tenna without murdering Jimmy.

The outside air makes Edgar feel better, even if it does have the permanent, lingering stink of cigarettes, but he still feels too wound up for the bus. He could use the exercise of a walk anyway, and his apartment isn’t _that_ far.

This part of the city had, according to Edgar’s mother, been a thriving, albeit lower income, part of the industrial district thirty or forty years ago. It’s hard to picture now. Most buildings are in the same state of disrepair as Devi’s bookshop, and graffiti covers every grate and window. Broken bottles and overflowing garbage cans choke the entrances to every alley. Over the years, the city has tried to gentrify the area, but nothing ever sticks.

A string of violent murders a year ago stopped the last attempt, and Edgar is privately glad. Not for the murders of course, those had been brutal even for this area, but for the failed gentrification. Most of his students are from this area, so sue him if he’s got a vested interest in making sure they don’t lose their homes.

Speaking of his students, he’s got two days to grade about two hundred final papers and nothing to blame but his own procrastination. Shit. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and walks a little faster.

***

Jimmy would like to state for the record that he didn’t ask to be part of a pack. When he’d begged (yeah, he’ll admit it, he’d begged on his knees like a bitch) Johnny to turn him, he’d had this ridiculous teenage girl, YA novel, bullshit fantasy of running off with a mysterious, brooding asshole. 

And then it turned out that Johnny hangs out with girls and doesn’t seem to even like Jimmy, which is ridiculous, because they have so much in common that they’re practically soulmates. One time Jimmy had called him ‘Nny,’ and Johnny had just about bitten his head off, so yeah, he hadn’t tried that again. He didn’t really try bringing up common interests either because let’s face it, there’s only so many times a guy can handle being told to “fuck the fuck off, you ignorant little thorn,” which had hurt a lot more than Jimmy thought it would. He can take a hint.

Okay, so Jimmy hasn’t fucked off in the literal sense, but where would he go if he did? If Johnny’s going to turn him, then he’s going to have to deal with having a shadow for a while. At least the girls seem to like him alright. Tolerate him, maybe. Barely.

He’s pretty sure he’s gone and blown that now though. All three of them had yelled at him for trying to get that enormous stick out of Edgar’s ass, and Tess had even pulled the “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” card like she was some kind of sixties tv mom. Not that he’s a good authority on what real moms are like. Johnny’s indifference had hurt the most, Jimmy thought he’d be glad about not having to do that stupid coffee bar, but he’d just looked at him down the arch of his nose before turning to peruse the shit on the desk.

It’s why Jimmy finds himself standing outside a high school, not his, thank fuck, he doesn’t think he could handle seeing any of his old teachers, watching the last of the brats hurry home for the day. He’s surprised at how _small_ they look. He remembers everyone being so much bigger than him, but they all just look soft and eager for summer. He steels himself and walks inside.

The secretary inside immediately narrows her eyes at him, which he supposes is fair, he’s a punk and dresses like it, but he’s not going to cause trouble for once. He tries for a charming smile, but the woman doesn’t look impressed. She’s in her forties, and the feathery pattern on her shirt makes her look like a vulture in glasses.

“Hey,” he says in the most ‘I am not a threat’ voice he can muster. “I’m here to see Edgar Vargas? He’s a friend of mine, and he said he’d give me a ride since my car broke down a couple blocks from here, but he forgot to tell me what his room number is. Can you help me?”

The whole innocent act must work a little bit, because the secretary gives him one more doubtful look but pushes the sign in/out sheet towards him. A lot of juniors are conveniently sick, and he wonders why they bother with excuses. He fills out the form mostly honestly, and hopefully Tess never finds out he used her last name. When he gets to the “Reason For Visit/Absence” column, he hesitates and chews on his lip before writing “i fucked up” with a little frowny face next to it. Better lay it on thick just to be safe.

The secretary snorts when he pushes the sheet back to her. “Room 216. If you go up the main stairs, take the hallway on the right, it’s the third door on the left. You want me to call and let him know you’re coming?”

“Nah, I texted him before I came in,” Jimmy lies. “Thanks though.” Jesus, if he has to be polite much longer, he’s going to punch something. Probably the secretary.

“You’re welcome,” she says, already turning back to her computer. Jimmy walks out of the office as casually as possible until he’s out of sight, then takes off up the stairs. The old hag is probably calling Edgar right now, and Devi will absolutely kick his ass if he doesn’t at least pretend to try and fix this. 

In his haste, he almost goes sailing past room 216 and ends up grabbing the door handle and crashing them both into the cinderblock wall. Oops. As long as nothing’s broken, no one can get mad at him.

“Are you okay?”

Jimmy peels himself off the door and looks at Edgar, half risen from his desk. Edgar’s concern vanishes and is replaced by a cold mask.

“What are you doing here?” Edgar snaps.

“Aw, don’t you care if I’m hurt?” Jimmy asks. “I think I need someone to kiss me b-”

“Stop,” Edgar says, and Jimmy shuts up without even thinking about it. “If you’ve just come here to harass me, I’m going to have to ask you to leave before I make you.”

The idea of Edgar making anyone, let alone Jimmy, leave is laughable, but he manages to keep a smirk off his face. He’s wearing a sweater, for fuck’s sake! With the sleeves pushed up! Edgar does have nice arms though, even if they are currently crossed over his chest. Jimmy can hear his foot tapping.

“Tenna really wants you to come help with the stupid coffee bar,” Jimmy says.

Edgar’s arched eyebrow matches the curve of his glasses perfectly. “I already said I’m busy.”

Jimmy drops onto a desk top and ignores Edgar’s pointed look. “Come on man, can’t you work something out? Tenna’s _mad_ at me, and you gotta know how hard it is to get her mad about shit.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?”

The honest answer is yes, but Jimmy’s never been accused of being a good person. Time for a subject change.

“Just a fact,” he says. “So how do you get anyone to actually listen to you?”

Edgar’s mask slips for a moment. “Excuse me?”

“Y’know,” Jimmy says and makes a vague gesture at him. “You’re like twenty five and look like a nerd. How have you not been eaten alive? Or hit on.”

“I’m twenty eight,” Edgar says, and wow, he actually sounds offended. It’s adorable. “And my students respect me because I respect them.”

Jimmy can’t help his snort. “Teenagers are assholes. There’s no way that works. And you didn’t answer my question about getting hit on.”

“You’d be surprised how well treating students like human beings works,” Edgar says. “Some of my colleagues could stand to learn that.”

“But do you get hit on?”

“What makes you think I get hit on?”

“‘Cause you’ve got this hot librarian thing going on.” Jimmy makes another vague gesture in Edgar’s direction. “Seriously, a sweater in May?”

He ignores the sweater jab. “I thought you said I was a nerd.”

“I did say librarian.”

Something like a smile tugs at Edgar’s mouth. “Fine, yes, I do, occasionally, get hit on by students.” He stands and starts packing folders into a book bag. “Now if this interrogation is over, I have a meeting in a few minutes.”

He walks past Jimmy, and Jimmy catches the scent of burned coffee and fresh printer ink. It’s not a terrible smell, and he sort of wants to bury his face in Edgar’s stupid sweater and just breathe it in. 

“Are you going to come back?” Jimmy asks. “To the bookstore?”

Edgar pauses by the door and regards him with lips pressed into a thin line. Several seconds pass before he sighs and says, “On one condition.”

Jimmy lets out a gust of air he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He didn’t expect to be so relieved by the answer, but he feels lighter already. “Okay.”

“Don’t say fag,” Edgar says, and it looks like it takes a physical toll to say the word. “At least not around me. I don’t care if you use it around other people, but not me. If you can’t do that I’m not coming back.”

“Why’s it such a big deal?” Jimmy asks, and backpedals at the dark look on Edgar’s face. “I’ll do it, chill! I just don’t get why you care so much.”

Edgar scrubs his free hand down his face and glances at the clock. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand, but I was a gay kid in the nineties, and words have power, okay? Now I have to get going. Have Tenna text when she wants me to come back to the shop, I guess.”

Edgar’s out the door before Jimmy can figure out how to respond, so he just listens to the sound of retreating footsteps echoing through the empty hallway and down the stairs. The dull thud of a closing door swallows the sound, and if Jimmy didn’t know better he’d say he was disappointed by the quiet. He stands up and scowls at the classroom like the colorful motivation posters have personally offended him, and really, who _hasn’t_ been offended by those things. His own reflection, warped by a technicolor sunset and eyes flashing, catches his attention.

“Fag,” he says to it. His reflection doesn’t respond, and he stomps out of the room to find the nearest exit. Somehow, he feels more agitated than when he’d arrived.


	2. Headaches and Bad Luck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Multiple panic attacks, some quality friendships being formed, and Jimmy realizes he's gayer than he thought he was.

**Devi Delacruz added Johnny Calcerrada, Tenna Hayes, Tess Reeds, Edgar Vargas, and Jimmy Sinclair to the chat.**

****

****

**Devi Delacruz changed her name to Devi.**

**Devi:** _Okay guys, this chat is for work on the coffee bar ONLY. If you want to talk about something else, take it to another chat._

**Jimmy Sinclair changed his name to Jimmy.**

**Johnny Calcerrada changed his name to Johnny.**

**Tenna Hayes changed her name to Ten Outta Ten.**

**Tess Reeds:** _tenna please_

**Ten Outta Ten:** _i have no idea what you’re talking about_

**Edgar Vargas changed his name to Edgar.**

**Edgar:** _I have work for two more weeks, but I can come on the weekends._

**Devi:** _That’s fine._

**Johnny:** _Why am I here? I didn’t want to have a coffee bar._

**Devi:** _If you’re gonna stay, you’re going to work, so shut up and deal with it._

**Johnny:** _Fine. I don’t like it though._

**Tess Reeds:** _I work night shifts tuesday to saturday but other than that i can come over whenever_

**Ten Outta Ten:** _u poor soul_

**Jimmy:** _edgar send dick pics_

**Edgar:** _No._

**Tess Reeds:** _JIMMY!!!!!!!_

**Devi:** _I literally just said this is for work only._

**Jimmy:** _you all suck_

**Johnny changed his name to Knee.**

**Knee:** _I DID NOT!!!!!!!!!!_

**Knee:** _WHO DID THIS???????????_

**Knee:** _JIMMY!!!!!!!!!!_

**Knee changed his name to Johnny.**

**Johnny:** _Fuck you._

**Jimmy:** _you can’t prove anything_

**Edgar:** _Well this has been enlightening, but I have grades to enter. Devi, I’ll come over Saturday if that’s okay with you?_

**Devi:** _Sounds good. See you then._

**Ten Outta Ten:** _Bye Edgar!_

**Jimmy:** _send dick pics!_

**Edgar has left the chat.**

__

Edgar lets his head drop to the pillow and ignores the throb of pain at the movement. He’s been laying down for the better part of two hours, waiting for the ibuprofen to take effect, and even though it hasn’t worked very well, he’s got too much work to keep laying around. If he keeps the lights low and his computer screen dim, he’ll be fine. 

On the bedside table, his phone continues to buzz every couple seconds, and the urge to throw it out the window grips him. He turns it off instead. It’s not like anyone else is going to text him, and his coworkers email him if they need something. 

It takes more effort that it really should for Edgar to pull himself out of bed and shuffle to the kitchen to fire up the keurig, especially for four thirty in the afternoon. The light from his laptop makes the pain spike behind his eyes, and he turns the brightness down to its lowest setting and scowls at his gradebook. He’s only halfway through entering grades for his first class and still has to grade the essays from the other four. 

He loves his students, he really does, but there’s only so many _Romeo and Juliet_ essays written by fifteen year olds a man can read before he goes cross eyed. Andrea in the history department had gloated in the lounge yesterday that she was already done grading her multiple choice tests, the bitch. At least his students like him. With a grimace, he downs his slightly burned coffee in three huge gulps and gets to work. 

__***_ _

The rest of Edgar’s week pass pretty much the same way, sans skull splitting migraine. Of the six hours a day he spends at the disconcertingly empty school, most are dedicated to stripping it back down to the bare bones he’d found in August. It’s only his first year as a proper teacher, not a substitute, but he remembers some other staff members telling him how they changed classrooms every year, and he’s taking no chances. He didn’t realize how much shit he’d managed to accumulate over two semesters, but he’s got at least as many boxes as when he moved into his apartment and nowhere to put anything. 

Staff meetings are even more of a nightmare than during the school year, and he finds himself playing Bejeweled for a solid hour Friday afternoon, only glancing up to nudge T’Nasia, the chemistry and physics teacher, whenever she starts to doze off. When they’re finally free, he all but sprints back to his room to enter the last of his grades. They’re due Sunday, and he doesn’t want that hanging over him anymore. 

By the time Saturday morning rolls around, Edgar’s head is back to doing an impression of a dumpster fire, but it’s not as bad as it was Tuesday. He pops back a few ibuprofen and swallows them dry, because who cares anymore, and starts up the keurig. Devi hasn’t messaged him saying when she wants him to come over, and to be honest, he doesn’t want to open the group chat. He’d opened it Thursday night with the same morbid curiosity that has people rubbernecking at car crashes and, predictably, it’s devolved into a tangle of squabbles over petty things and Jimmy and Tenna messing with people’s names. Still, he needs to know when to go to the store. He opens the chat. 

**Assfuck McGee:** _i’m just saying, bucky could shove his entire metal arm up my ass and i’d thank him_

__Edgar closes the chat. He brews another mug of coffee, resists the urge to dump half a bottle of peppermint Schnapps in it, and reopens the chat._ _

**Shit Ass Depression Brain:** _isn’t it weird that bucky just showed up in the martian? like he’s just there and no one ever explains it_

**Slightly Used Assless Chaps Size 42:** _In the book he had a name, and he was important._

**Shit Ass Depression Brain:** _Edgay is that you?_

**Shit Ass Depression Brain:** _Edgar*_

**Assfuck McGee:** _edgay_

**NaziPuncher5000:** _edgay_

**Hot Hot Leg:** _edgay_

**Slightly Used Assless Chaps Size 42 has changed his name to Edgar.**

**Edgar has changed his name to Edgay.**

**Edgay has changed his name to Edgar.**

**Edgar has changed his name to Edgay.**

**Edgay:** _I give up. Is Devi here?_

**Hot Hot Leg has changed her name to Devi.**

**Devi:** _Unfortunately. What’s up?_

**Edgay:** _Do you still want me to swing by today? And what time, if you do?_

**Devi:** _Yeah, just come by whenever. I’ve been working on a budget, but right now I need help figuring out where the damn thing’s going to go. There’s not a ton of room in the shop as it is._

**Edgay:** _Sounds good. I’ll be over in a half hour or so. Do you have anything else planned?_

**Devi:** _I’d like to start going through the books if we have time. Abuela would take whatever books people gave her, no matter what they were or what condition they’re in. One time I found a physics textbook from 1957._

**NaziPuncher5000:** _holy shit dude_

**Edgay:** _Who are you? I’ve completely lost track._

**NaziPuncher5000:** _Tess. depression brain is Tenna, and i’ll give you three guesses as to who assfuck mcgee is_

**AssFuck McGee:** _i came out here to have a good time and i honestly feel so attacked right now_

**Edgay:** _Hello, Jimmy._

**Assfuck McGee:** _hey babe. how bout them n00dz?_

**Edgay:** _Aaaaand I’m leaving. Devi, I’ll see you soon._

**Assfuck McGee:** _noooooooo_

**Devi:** _Ok. See you then._

**Edgay has left the chat.**

__***_ _

__When Edgar arrives at the bookstore, Devi whisks him inside with barely a hello. Her hair is already starting to frizz out of her pigtails, and she’s got an honest to god clipboard in her free hand. He catches a glimpse of line after line of numbers and dozens of angry scribbles and question marks._ _

__“Right,” she says. “I’m thinking we put the coffee bar against the right wall by the entrance so it’s one of the first things people see when they come in. The problem is, the checkout counter-” she makes a vague gesture at a counter on the opposite side of the shop that’s only barely visible under boxes of god knows what “- already takes up a lot of space. Plus the shelves on the right wall are built ins, so it’ll be a pain in my ass to get them down, and I’m not even sure if we can afford to lose that much shelf space to begin with.”_ _

__Edgar takes a moment to process this. He stares around the shop. The aisles between shelves are already as narrow as they can get without being a fire hazard, and many of the actual shelves are starting to bow under the weight of the books stuffed on them. There’s really not much room to work with._ _

__“Okay,” Edgar says slowly, still working through the problem. “Well I don’t think we should get rid of the built ins even if we put the coffee bar there, because we can use them for storage. We can probably put cupboard doors on them if we need to.” He turns and faces the checkout counter. “We could also probably take a few feet off of that if we get really desperate, but mostly I think we just need to go through the books. Did your abuela keep an inventory anywhere?”_ _

__Devi shrugs. “If she did, I can’t find it. I’m pretty sure she kept it all in her head. She was pretty cool like that.” She gets a wistful little smile for a few seconds before schooling her expression. “Anyway, what you said lined up pretty well with what I’ve been thinking, but I wanted to get a second opinion. Now come on, I left the others in the back and I’m worried world war three might be starting.”_ _

__If world war three has broken out, then it’s a very cold war. Tess is perched daintily in the chair Jimmy had occupied last week and deeply engrossed in a book. Tenna leans against the side of the chair and taps furiously at her phone screen, muttering under her breath, and for some reason, Johnny has seen fit to sit crossed legged on the desk. The poor thing looks ready to collapse into splinters under him, even if he looks like he weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet._ _

__“Okay guys,” Devi says, and everyone looks at her. Even Johnny stops scribbling in his notebook, albeit with resentment written in every feature. “Edgar and I have come up with a bit of a game plan.” She fills them in on the earlier conversation. “I also want to repaint and restain this place inside and out. I’m pretty sure I was in kindergarten the last time this place had a touch up.”_ _

__“I didn’t agree to this,” Johnny says even as he slinks off the desk._ _

__“We know,” Devi says, “but you’re going to help. Specifically, you’re going to help Edgar go through the books. We’re going to lose at least one bookshelf in this, and some of those books will never sell.”_ _

__“Why us?” Johnny looks down his nose at Edgar, disdain written all over his face. It’s more comical than offensive though, since Johnny’s about a head shorter than him, and Edgar has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling._ _

__“Because Edgar’s a nerd and you’re unbearably pretentious.” Devi waves a hand at a pile of empty boxes in a corner. “Books we keep stay on the shelf, and then I want a box for books we can repair on a budget and books we reject because no one will buy them or they’re in shitty condition.”_ _

__“What about you?” Edgar asks._ _

__“We’re going to talk colors,” Devi says. She turns her back and, well, Edgar knows a dismissal when he sees one. He grabs two boxes and tosses one at Johnny, who catches it easily and pouts like a severely underfed toddler._ _

__***_ _

Johnny is, in fact, unbearably pretentious. It makes him extremely difficult to work with, as Edgar quickly finds out. For starters, he refuses to actually pick up and carry his box, and instead pushes it across with his feet, often hitting the backs of Edgar’s ankles. They also have very different ideas about what makes a book unsellable, and Edgar nearly beats Johnny upside the head with a German translation of _Faust_ that keeps disappearing from the ‘Unsellable’ box. 

__“No one here knows German!” Edgar snaps, shaking the book under Johnny’s nose after pulling it off the shelf for the fourth time._ _

__Johnny plucks the book out of his hand. “I do.”_ _

__“Bullshit you do,” Edgar says. He takes the book back and smacks him squarely on top of the head before throwing it into the box with more force than necessary._ _

__“I do!” Johnny insists. “It’s the only way to read Goethe.”_ _

__Edgar blinks at him, because honestly, how is he supposed to respond to that? “You keep it then.”_ _

__“I don’t have room in my house,” Johnny says, while tossing a book with no cover into the trash box. “Besides, I already have four copies.”_ _

__“You what.”_ _

__“Yeah. One unabridged copy in German, a hardcover copy of just act one, a hardcover copy of just act two, and one annotated copy. The notes are also in German.”_ _

__Edgar stares at him for a long time. “I might actually kill you.”_ _

Johnny snorts and doesn’t look away from the shelves. “What are you some kind of psycho? Ooh, _Les Miserables_!” 

__“Where?” Edgar nearly trips over the boxes and shoves Johnny out of the way. He spots the faded gold lettering and pulls the book off the shelf. The spine is cracked and there’s grease marks on the cover where someone had held it dozens of times. He flips through it, checking for obvious damage. The print is tiny, and several pages toward the end are stained with what look suspiciously like tears, but otherwise it’s in great condition._ _

“I can’t justify taking this off the shelf,” he says. He hasn’t been actively looking for it or anything, but he’d read it in college and seen the movie adaptation from the seventies and the musical, so it’s not like he’d say no to owning a copy. It’d make a nice break from _Romeo and Juliet_ and _The Odyssey_ at any rate. 

__“Just take it,” Johnny says. “No one’s gonna buy it.”_ _

__Edgar sighs. “No, it’s gotten more popular recently.”_ _

__“It has?”_ _

__“I- yeah, there was- the musical came out on DVD like five years ago.”_ _

__Johnny looks at him blankly. Edgar really wants to start hitting his head against a bookshelf._ _

__“Hugh Jackman was Jean Valjean?” Still nothing. “Russell Crowe was Javert?”_ _

“There’s a musical adaptation of _Les Miserables_?” 

__Edgar stares at him. “You’re joking, right?”_ _

“No!” Johnny says, and he sounds completely genuine. Edgar’s at a loss. “I mean, I know about the musical for _Le Notre Dame de Paris_ -” 

__“Oh, thank god you know-_ _

“ _Esmeralda_ , yeah.” 

__Edgar can’t recall the last time some rendered him speechless so many times so quickly. It’d be more impressive if he wasn’t ready to explode. “I’m sorry, what?”_ _

“Y’know, _Esmeralda_? The play Victor Hugo wrote because he realized _Le Notre Dame de Paris_ was racist shit? I mean technically it’s an opera, but they only call it that because they didn’t have the word musical. There’s plenty of spoken dialogue.” Johnny looks at Edgar like he’s an idiot, which makes Edgar feel sort of like an idiot. He’s pretty sure they’re having two completely different conversations. 

__“I mean,” Edgar says, “you’re not wrong about any of that, but I was talking about the Disney movie.”_ _

__“Ugh!” Johnny throws a book into the trash bin so hard it explodes, though to be fair, the book was in terrible condition to begin with. “Disney was a soulless sellout fuck! He ruined those fairy tales, and I’m not talking about the Grimm versions, because fuck them too! I’ll get back to those sexist fucks in a minute. Actually that’s another thing Disney was. Sexist. Racist. Asshole. And now his corporation capitalizes off people’s nostalgia and the bastardization of other cultures! They only started diversifying because it was unprofitable not to!”_ _

__“Hur dur hur.” Tess appears seemingly from nowhere behind Johnny, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. “Technology is bad, fire is scary, and Thomas Edison was a witch!” She turns and walks away before Edgar’s heart calms down enough for him to respond. Johnny pokes his head around the bookshelf and glares._ _

__“I respect your opinion,” he calls after her, “but you’re still wrong!” There’s a moment of quiet. “Well fuck you too then.”_ _

__Edgar giggles. Johnny looks at him like he’s gone off the deep end, and he slaps his hand over his mouth. The laughter keeps coming though, and he slides down the bookshelf. He tries to say something, but it’s impossible to get more than a syllable out without being overcome by a fresh wave of hysterical giggles. Tears prick his eyes, and he’s not sure if they’re from laughing of the feeling of iron bands constricting his chest._ _

__“I’ve gone insane, right?” Edgar takes off his glasses and scrubs at his eyes. “There’s no way this is real. There’s no way any of you are real.”_ _

__Johnny looks offended. “I’m real. Do I not bleed?”_ _

__“Shut the fuck up,” Edgar says as seriously can around more giggles. “I’m losing my grip on reality, and you’re not helping.”_ _

__“Shit,” Johnny sighs and sits down next to Edgar. “Okay, what’s your mom’s maiden name?”_ _

__“What does that have to do with-”_ _

__“I’m helping ground you,” Johnny says, without looking at Edgar. He’s all folded up so his bony knees stick out of the rips in his jeans. “Now shut up and answer the question.”_ _

__Edgar thinks that you can’t shut up and answer a question at the same time, but he decides not to point this out. He laughs again, and Johnny turns to raise an eyebrow at him._ _

__“Merediz,” Edgar says. “I don’t see how this helps.”_ _

__“Just trust me, okay?” Johnny says. “Where were you born?”_ _

__“Mesa, Arizona,” Edgar says._ _

__Johnny nods. “Good. You’re doing good. Where do you teach?”_ _

__“San Niros Public Schools.”_ _

__“How long have you been teaching there?”_ _

__Edgar laughs a little, but it sounds less insane this time. “Full time or as a sub?”_ _

__“See, you’re getting better!” Johnny beams at him, lopsided and too wide, but still somehow endearing. “And let’s include subbing in there, why not.”_ _

__“Three years,” Edgar says. He feels less like he’s going to throw up or cry now, but the world still feels off kilter, like someone moved everything a few inches to the left and forget to tell him._ _

__“Well, I can’t check that, but it sounds right. Who’s the president?”_ _

__“A fucking idiot.”_ _

__“Yep!” Johnny says brightly. “Sorry for reminding you. Ugh, sorry for reminding me. I’m gonna go into a dissociative episode.”_ _

__“Don’t do that,” Edgar says, and he was supposed to be going along with the joke, but Johnny looks at him almost, but not quite, apologetically._ _

__“Okay,” Johnny says with a shrug. “Count the red books on the bottom shelf in front of us.”_ _

__“Seriously?”_ _

__Johnny rests an arm over his knees, fiddling with a lighter he pulled from who knows where, and pulls a battered pack of cigarettes out of his pocket with his free hand. He places it between his teeth and flicks the lighter on. “Yup.”_ _

__Edgar huffs and starts counting. There’s not a lot of red books on the shelf, but he wishes Johnny had picked a different one anyway, because there’s this one book that looks like it could be right on the edge of pink or red. He decides to count it anyway. Johnny blows out a cloud of smoke next to him._ _

__“You got your answer?” he asks._ _

__Before Edgar can do anything more than open his mouth, there’s a loud bang from the direction of the office, and Devi’s voice floats towards them with the calm and grace of an enraged bull. “Jonathan Calcerrada, you’d better not be smoking in my abuela’s shop!”_ _

__Johnny pinches out the cigarette and bats the smoke away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”_ _

__Edgar waits for Devi to come stomping over to them, but apparently she’s decided they’re not worth her time. Johnny scowls in her general direction and shoves the cigarette in his pocket._ _

__“Six,” Edgar says. Johnny looks at him like he really has lost it. “There’s six red books.”_ _

__“There’s five,” Johnny says._ _

__“I counted the one in the middle between the two black books as red,” Edgar says, pointing to it. Johnny squints at it._ _

__“That’s pink. That’s clearly pink.”_ _

“It’s not _clearly_ pink,” Edgar protests. “It’s like, right on the edge. It counts.” 

__“It does not!” Johnny unfolds himself a little. “You might not be losing your mind, but I think your vision might be going. How many fingers am I holding up?”_ _

__Edgar glances between Johnny’s raised fingers (four of them) and his shit eating grin. “Fuck you.” He shoves Johnny’s face away and finds himself grinning. “That doesn’t have anything to do with color vision and you know it.”_ _

__Johnny laughs, high and raspy. “Yeah, but it was funny.”_ _

__“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Edgar says. “Now come on, we’ve got shit to do.”_ _

__With much dramatic groaning and complaining, Johnny hauls himself up and offers Edgar a hand. He pulls him up with much more ease than Edgar had been expecting for someone so tiny. They work a little faster now though, with Johnny making a few more concessions about what will or won’t sell, and less general squabbling. Still, it doesn’t take long for the boxes to become way too goddamn heavy._ _

__“Where the hell is Jimmy?” Edgar complains. “This would go faster with his help.”_ _

__Johnny makes a disparaging noise. “Jimmy is a flea.”_ _

__“I thought you were at least acquaintances?” Edgar asks. He hadn’t really thought that, the two barely seemed to tolerate each other, but he wants answers as to what the fuck he’s getting himself into. Johnny, for his part, stops in his quest to get a book off the top shelf to scowl at Edgar._ _

__“I’ve never been so offended,” he says, then pauses. “Actually that’s a lie, but it’s how I feel right now. Jimmy is a lazy, annoying, irreverant shit who only cares about himself. I can’t stand him, but Tess has a soft spot for him, so he gets to stay.”_ _

__Edgar’s not sure he likes the way Johnny’s talking about Jimmy. It’s not that he hasn’t thought most of those things himself, but in his experience, people are never that simple. He’s had students like Jimmy, lashing out and being obnoxious for attention, and pretty much all the staff had treated them the way Johnny talked about Jimmy. Once Edgar bothered to make an effort to know them though, he’d found they were perfectly smart, good kids. Maybe not nice or smart in the way schools wanted, but they deserved a chance and had risen to it when one had arrived. Jimmy deserves a chance too._ _

__The conversation with Johnny fizzles out after that. Edgar tries to talk about other things, but Johnny seems to have relapsed into his petulant silence of an hour ago. He only speaks to ask Edgar whether a book is salvageable or not, and staunchly refuses to ask his opinion on whether something is too pretentious to sell, though he doesn’t complain when Edgar takes a book he’d passed by off its shelf and throws it in the box._ _

__It’s not for several more hours that Edgar gets an answer to where the hell Jimmy is._ _

__***_ _

__Jimmy wants a fight. He’s been prowling the very worst streets of San Niros for an hour, but there’s just not anyone looking for a good old brawl at eleven in the morning, and the streets are empty except for bums with their cheap cigarettes and gas station coffee. One eyes him with the angry suspicion of a cornered animal, and Jimmy glares back. His heart isn’t in it though. The man’s too old for a fight to give him any catharsis._ _

__That’s the word, right? He’d heard Devi use it when Tenna asked why any sane person would work out for fun, and it sounded like something someone used when they wanted to seem smarter than they really were. Just say relief. If that’s what it means. Jimmy’s not actually sure if that’s right._ _

He _is_ sure that he needs to fight someone soon. It crawls under his skin like a cockroach, an itch that only the smell of someone else’s blood and the feel of his knuckles splitting will scratch. 

It’s been harder and harder to get that scratch since Johnny turned him. The fights are too easy and the cuts don’t last like they used to. Winning so easily makes his skin crawl in a way that’s so much worse than the need for a fight until he ends up tearing and punching at the concrete and steel of abandoned buildings until he’s bloody and raw and shaking but _sane_. All the fights and blood make him feel a little less crazy, and he thinks that might make him crazy. 

__Somewhere nearby, a pipe clangs. Jimmy’s stomach drops in a way that leaves vomit burning the back of his throat, and he forces himself to swallow and breathe through his nose. He’s got to get out of the alley. It’s too dark and closed and it reeks of piss and alcohol, and he can’t get enough air._ _

Stumbling out of the alley feels more dramatic than it probably is to anyone who happens to see, but the sunlight soothes him more than he cares to admit. He leans against the wall and tries not to feel too pathetic, closing his eyes and just breathing. Unbidden, Edgar’s unimpressed gaze fills the space behind his eyelids. He’d probably have some things to say about all this. _Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?_

__Jimmy slams his fists into the brick. Someone’s got to bleed, and at this point he doesn’t care if it’s him. He storms down the street, glaring around for someone who looks like they might be even a little bit of a challenge. For several blocks, no one catches his eye until finally, finally, he catches sight of a perfect specimen._ _

__A few months ago, Jimmy wouldn’t even have considered fighting this guy, even on his worst days. He’s white, covered in tattoos, and jacked in a way that makes Jimmy think he spends time at the gym to compensate for his dick, and guys like that want fights almost as much as he does. The guy’s walking down the sidewalk and scowling like someone had complimented him and forgotten to say no homo. Jimmy can’t wait to beat his ass._ _

__They collide in a way that at one time would’ve sent Jimmy staggering, but now he just steps to the side to compensate and keeps walking._ _

__“Watch where you’re going, asshole!” The guy snaps. The dirt under his shoes crunches as he turns, and Jimmy can hear him mouth breathing. God, this is just too easy._ _

__“Kiss my ass,” Jimmy says, barely turning to look at the guy. He’s already red in the face, and Jimmy cracks a smile that feels just the good side of evil._ _

__“What the fuck is your problem?” He advances on Jimmy and towers over him. In his mind, Jimmy draws steam clouds blowing out his ears._ _

__“My problem,” Jimmy says in a tone usually reserved for two year olds and particularly stupid meatheads, “is that you’re too fucking stupid to watch where the fuck you’re going. Now piss off.” He shoves lightly, mockingly at Meathead’s chest in a way that does absolutely nothing to move him but wonders to piss him off, and turns on his heel._ _

__“Oh, fuck you!”_ _

__Jimmy lets himself get spun around, breathing in the smell of sweat and adrenaline, and watches the fist come for his chest like it’s moving through water. He’s been waiting for this, and he wants it to last and only shifts enough that the blow catches him in the side rather than the center of his chest. The force sends him staggering, but he’s not even winded._ _

__“My turn,” Jimmy says, and swings at the man’s face. He’s gotten much better at figuring out how much force can still pass for human while still scratching the itch, and the energy that tries to shake his bones apart when Meathead blocks the blow doesn’t phase him._ _

Jimmy bears down on Meathead, steering them towards a nearby alley, because people in San Niros don’t give a shit about violence, he really doesn’t want the cops called on them for brawling in the middle of the street. It’s also becoming increasingly clear that he severely overestimated Meathead. He’s blocking Jimmy alright, but schoolyard bullies have done more damage. With a snarl, Jimmy slams his fists into Meathead’s ribs and relishes the _creak-snap!_ sound right before howl of pain. Meathead collapses to the ground and and curls around his ribs, whimpering. 

“Pathetic,” Jimmy spits. His blood roars in his ears, begging to get out and paint the alley walls red. He wants to _hurt_ , but the ache in his arms is already fading. Without a second glance at Meathead, Jimmy storms out of the alley. 

__***_ _

If Jimmy had to guess, he’d say the nightmares and the fights started about the same time. He couldn’t quite say when _that_ was, but he knows it’s true. Case in point: last night he’d dreamed about falling down stairs and bruises under clothes and shadows moving through pitch black, and now he’s climbing the exposed skeleton of an abandoned construction project. He thinks it’s part of the project from last year, but there’s been so many it’s impossible to tell. All he knows is that it’s private, even in the middle of Saturday. 

__Jimmy hits a pillar, not even enough to hurt really, just enough to get a feel for how hard he’ll have to hit to feel something. Fear rumbles quietly in his stomach, it always does before something like this, a thrill of adrenaline he imagines a skydiver or professional boxer gets. He punches again, hard enough to make the concrete crack, and feels the skin over the knuckle of his middle finger split. A coppery scent fills the air, and Jimmy pulls his hand back to watch the skin knit itself back together. Within seconds there’s no sign he was ever hurt, not even scar tissue. It’s a sight he never gets bored of._ _

__With his left hand now, Jimmy strikes the pillar and watches a cloud of dust puff up while rubble falls to the floor. The skin over the first two knuckles seals back up, leaving just a couple smears of blood to show he’d ever been hurt. That’s part of the problem, he thinks. He needs the hurt to stay, to ruin himself for more than a few seconds at a time. Something that feels uncomfortably like a sob lodges itself in his throat. Pathetic._ _

__Time sort of stops meaning anything, and the only thing that marks its passing at all is the more notable injuries Jimmy gives himself. A rock cuts so deep he thinks it might’ve severed a tendon. The I-beam reveals itself by breaking something in his hand. The jutting edge of the beam snaps all four of his fingers like twigs._ _

Jimmy screams and collapses. His hands are mangled and dripping red, it’s all over the pillar and fresh rubble he’d kneeling in, and the itch is gone, replaced by a hollow numbness. A tear splashes on his hand, mixing with the blood. _Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?_ His skin ripples and shudders as his bones try to pull themselves together, and he can’t breathe around the lump in his throat. _Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?_

Something breaks inside Jimmy, and he sobs so hard he feels like he’s going to throw up. _God, you’re pathetic. You can’t do anything right!_ He can’t pull in any air, he’s choking, and there must be sharp little pebbles in his lungs and throat because every aborted breath burns and rips at him. _Ignorant little thorn._ His hands spasm, and this time he does pull in a breath of air that feels too solid to be refreshing and coughs it back out. He’s surprised there’s not blood on his sleeve. _Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?_

__“I don’t know,” Jimmy gasps. “I don’t know. I don’t know I don’t know Idon’tknow Idon’tknowIdon’tknow.” He feels like a little kid with hands full of splinters and no water left in him to cry for help._ _

__The bones in his fingers burn and ache, and Jimmy stares at them. He’s going to have to set them so they’re not completely fucked. Shit. He hates this part, and it’s never been this bad before._ _

__“I can do this,” Jimmy mutters. Some of the panic ebbs away, or maybe he forces it away, but focusing is easier now. He rests the horrible v shape of his fingers against his thigh. Better to get it all in one go. He pushes._ _

__It burns. It burns so much worse than the initial break, and he’d scream if he wasn’t scared he’d puke. A choked whimper forces its way out, along with more tears. He curls around himself just to breathe, and fuck, the pain isn’t leaving at all, it’s just changing into the molten pins and needles of bones healing in fast forward. He really wishes he didn’t know what that felt like. He wishes he didn’t know what a lot of things felt like._ _

__***_ _

__The one nice thing about being covered in blood is that no one messes with you. People give Jimmy exactly one look before giving something on the other side of the street their undivided attention until he passes, and yeah, he can hear them whispering behind him, but whatever. He’s fine. He doesn’t care. Seriously._ _

__It’s people he actually knows whose opinions give him trouble. For instance, Tess throwing open the door to glare him down before he gets a hand on the knob. That he sort of cares about._ _

__“What the hell happened?” She catches sight of his hands, which are more swollen, purple bruise than anything else, and her eyes bug out behind her glasses. “What the fuck, Jimmy?”_ _

__“I’m fine,” he grumbles, and crosses his arms. He’d like to think he does a good job of hiding exactly how much that hurts, but Tess’s expression says otherwise. She looks like she can’t decide whether she’s more worried or pissed off, and it’s really off-putting. People don’t worry about him._ _

__“What’s going on?” Edgar’s voice floats through the shelves, and Jimmy barely stops himself from bolting back out the door. He shakes his head at Tess, who ignores him._ _

__“Jimmy’s here.”_ _

__Edgar’s head pokes out from behind a bookshelf, quickly followed by the rest of him. He’s wearing a flannel with the sleeves rolled up and covered in old book dust and sweat, and Jimmy’s mouth goes dry. He wants to run because Edgar looks pissed, not because rumpled is a good look on him, definitely not that._ _

__Except all the anger drains out of Edgar’s face when he sees the blood on his clothes, and Jimmy still wants to bolt because the way his eyes widen is so much worse than anger. Edgar rushes to him and makes an aborted gesture like he wants to touch Jimmy but is terrified of hurting him. Jimmy moves away from him and crosses his arms tighter._ _

__“Oh my God,” Edgar says hoarsely, his eyes trained in horror on the blue black tips of Jimmy’s fingers. Well goddamn, shit, ass, hell, and fuck._ _

__“I’m fine,” Jimmy snaps. If he backs up a little more he’ll be out the door- nope, nevermind, Tess shut it._ _

__Edgar glares at him. “Like hell you are, now let me see.”_ _

__Jimmy glares right back, but uncrosses his arms. No matter what anyone else says, he knows how to pick his battles. He holds his hands palms down in front of him, and as much as he’d love to make fun of Edgar’s nauseated expression, his fingers look almost as bad as they feel. His left hand isn’t so bad, just his knuckles and the part of his hand that had fractured are bruised, but his right hand has seen better days._ _

__“Can I take a closer look?” Edgar asks, hands hovering just short of touching. Jimmy shrugs and avoids looking directly at him, like he’s the fucking sun or something. Edgar pushes his glasses up on his head and guides Jimmy’s left hand closer by the wrist. He brushes his fingers over the worst of the bruising, and Jimmy hisses._ _

__“Sorry,” Edgar says. His fingers are long sure around Jimmy’s wrist, and Jimmy can’t stop staring at the contrast between their skin. He looks so pale and cold, like a drowned corpse, and Edgar looks as warm as he feels. Dried blood flakes off under his feather light touch._ _

__“What happened?” Tess asks. Jimmy pulls his gaze away from Edgar’s hands to look at her. All her anger is gone, and she just looks worried, face all scrunched up as she adjusts her glasses._ _

__“Got mugged,” Jimmy says with a shrug. “Apparently ‘I don’t have any money’ was the wrong answer. Motherfucker knocked me over and stomped on my hands.”_ _

__Tess raises an eyebrow at him but doesn’t call him on the lie. He knows she can hear his heartbeat trip up and that she’ll probably interrogate him over what really happened later. Edgar just squeezes his wrist gently._ _

__“I don’t think anything’s broken on this hand,” Edgar says. He lets go, and Jimmy lets his arm fall to his side. “This though-” he barely touches Jimmy’s right hand as he guides it closer “-Jesus, Jimmy, you need to be careful.”_ _

__Jimmy’s protest dies somewhere in his throat when he makes the mistake of looking at Edgar. He’s not looking back at him, all his attention is focused on Jimmy’s hand, fingers brushing over the bruises so lightly that it almost doesn’t hurt, and Jimmy realizes that Edgar is sort of beautiful. Really, stupidly beautiful, actually. His eyes are so dark that it’s almost impossible to tell where iris ends and pupil begins, and his eyelashes are thicker and prettier than any girl’s. The way his features are put together make him look like a statue, something out of one of those fancy ass museums Johnny’s always rambling about, and god, Jimmy must be in shock or some shit because Edgar smells good up close. Coffee and old books and sweat, which shouldn’t smell that good, but Jimmy’s suddenly so tired that he wants to collapse against him and breathe. Or bite the spot on his neck where he can see his pulse fluttering, Jimmy’s not picky._ _

__“Your middle finger’s broken,” Edgar says._ _

__“No it’s not,” Jimmy says, but when he follows Edgar’s gaze, well. It certainly _looks_ broken. The pins and needles feeling is gone, so he knows that it really isn’t broken, but it’s healed at a funny angle that doesn’t look good._ _

__“You need to go to a hospital,” Edgar insists._ _

__Jimmy tugs his hand away and crosses his arms again, partly because the bruise on his left hand is starting to fade and he really doesn’t want to blow the whole werewolf thing. “I’ve dealt with worse, it’s fine.”_ _

__Edgar looks distressed. “That doesn’t make me feel any better. That actually makes me feel worse.”_ _

__“Jimmy,” Tess says, and he’s sort of forgotten she was there. “You need to go to the hospital.”_ _

__He really wants to ask her if she’s lost her fucking mind, but she’s staring him down in a way that doesn’t leave much room for argument. Hopefully she’s got an actual solution, because going to the hospital with a healing factor worthy of a comic book is one of the worst ideas he’s ever heard, and he’s the king of bad ideas. “Fine.”_ _

__“I’ll drive,” Tess says._ _

__“Should I come?” Edgar asks. He looks at Jimmy with worry, and it makes Jimmy’s stomach twist. Why does he even care?_ _

__“I’ve got it,” Tess says. “Besides, if you come we either have to cram your long ass legs in the back, or make Jimmy climb in without using his hands.”_ _

__“I could meet you there,” Edgar says. His insistence is making Jimmy uncomfortable. Tess seems to pick up on this and pats Edgar’s shoulder while steering Jimmy in the general direction of the back office._ _

__“Don’t worry about it. His finger’s clearly broken, so they’ll just give him an x-ray, numb the fuck out of his arm, and give him a brace and painkillers.”_ _

__Jimmy hurries out the back, catching Johnny’s unimpressed gaze as he passes where he’s lurking in the shelves, and ignores Tenna and Devi in the office, who are both pretending they weren’t eavesdropping. Tess joins him in the parking lot a minute later, thankfully Edgar free. The look on her face isn’t quite a glare, but he still has the distinct feeling of having been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar._ _

__“I’m not going to ask what happened,” she says, and oh joy, the ‘I’m disappointed’ voice is back, “but you need to break your finger again so it sets properly.”_ _

__“What? No!” Jimmy holds his right hand close to his chest like she might just do it herself._ _

__“You won’t be able to use it!”_ _

__“Fuck you!”_ _

__“Fuck you!”_ _

__They glare at each other, Tess with her hands on her hips, and Jimmy feeling like hunched around his hand isn’t the most intimidating position to be in. After several seconds, Tess glances back at the bookshop._ _

__“Well we need to at least get in the car and drive around so Edgar doesn’t get suspicious,” she says. She looks back at him. “Do you want lunch?”_ _

__***_ _

Tess doesn’t seem to have any particular place in mind as she drives around downtown, and Jimmy tries to pretend to be comfortable in her car. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s actually pretty nice for San Niros (which is to say, not a total junker), but he doesn’t like the feeling of being trapped. Especially because he doesn’t really _know_ Tess. He doesn’t really know any of them, even though they’ve been hanging out, if you can even call it that, for months. 

__“I don’t have any money,” Jimmy says, just to break the silence._ _

__“It’s cool,” Tess says. “I’ll pay.”_ _

__They sit in silence for a few more minutes._ _

__“Is this a date?” Jimmy asks, because he can’t think of any other reason for someone to buy food for him._ _

__Tess side eyes him. “Jimmy, I know you’re not stupid, so don’t act like it.”_ _

__“Well clearly you don’t know shit, ‘cause I am stupid.”_ _

__“No, you’re not,” Tess says, with so much confidence that Jimmy almost believes her._ _

__“Then why-”_ _

“Sometimes friends buy each other food,” Tess says, and apparently she doesn’t notice Jimmy staring at her like she’s got a second head, because _what_? “It’s not a big deal.” 

__“I thought you were mad at me?” Jimmy’s not sure if it’s a question or not, but it feels like one anyway. “About pissing Edgar off the other day.”_ _

__Tess shrugs. “I was. I really want this coffee bar to work, and we need Edgar for that. But then you fixed the problem and talked to him, and now he’s helping us. No harm, no foul.”_ _

__Jimmy stares at his hands in his lap, watching the last of the bruises turning yellowish green and fading away. He’s never had the luxury of being able to let go of anger. It’s kept him alive this long, and he’s not even sure he remembers how to exist without the feel of it burning in his muscles._ _

__“Ooh, let’s eat here!” Tess pulls sharply into a parking spot. Jimmy looks up to see a peeling poster in the window of some hole in the wall diner that proudly proclaims “World’s Worst Burgers!” He’s starting to regret this._ _

__“Why?” Jimmy asks._ _

__“I dunno,” Tess says, unbuckling herself and turning the car off. “I just want to know what makes them so bad.”_ _

__“Maybe it’s the toppings?” Jimmy follows her out of the car. The place looks unsanitary, and he wonders if werewolf healing extends to E. coli._ _

__“You can have a good burger without any toppings,” Tess says. “I bet it’s the meat.”_ _

__“I’ve had plenty of burgers with bad meat that have been bomb as hell.” Jimmy regrets listening to Tess more as they walk inside. Something smells foul, and he knows it’s not just an overly sensitive nose. The tables he can see look greasy, and not many of them are occupied._ _

__“Maybe it’s the bread?” Tess walks up to the miserable looking teenager behind the host stand. “Table for two please.”_ _

__“Follow me,” the girl says with absolutely no inflection. Jimmy wonders if she’s a zombie. Maybe the burgers are bad because they’re made with brains. It’d explain the smell at any rate. He tells Tess his theory after they’re seated and given menus by an equally zombified looking waiter, but she doesn’t look convinced._ _

__“They’re bored,” she says. “It’s the service industry. Everything in it is terrible.”_ _

__“Oh come on!” Jimmy gestures back in the direction of the hostess and ignores Tess’s hisses of ‘don’t be rude.’ “They don’t even have a customer service voice! Because they’re zombies! If w-” Tess makes a throat cutting gesture at him, and he lowers his voice. “If we exist, why can’t they?”_ _

__Tess looks unimpressed enough to give Johnny a run for his money. “No.”_ _

__“But-”_ _

__“I’m getting a bacon cheeseburger,” she says, plowing over his totally legit argument. “Do you think the shakes are bad too?”_ _

__“I don’t know.” Jimmy wants to keep making his case for the zombie theory, but he’s really fucking hungry. There’s only three burger options, like a bad In-‘N-Out burger, and three shake options. Burger, cheeseburger, bacon cheeseburger. Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry. Alright then._ _

__The waiter takes their orders a few minutes later, still with absolutely no emotion. They both end up getting bacon cheeseburgers, but Tess gets a chocolate shake and Jimmy gets strawberry. She makes a comment about it being cute but refuses to elaborate on it when he pesters her._ _

__“Make a fist.” Tess interrupts Jimmy’s rant._ _

__“What?”_ _

__She gestures to his right hand. “Make a fist. The swelling’s gone, so you should be fine now.”_ _

Jimmy pulls a face at her and clenches his hand into a fist. Except his middle finger won’t go down all the way. It sticks up about a half inch, and when he pushes down on it, pain shoots up his hand. Fuck. He unclenches and tries again with the same results. _Fuck._

__“I can’t,” he says finally._ _

__“Mm-hm.” Tess stares at him expectantly._ _

__“I think I need to break it again.”_ _

__“Mm-hmm.”_ _

__Jimmy looks at the unnatural bend in his finger and thinks back to the pain of setting them the first time. His stomach churns just thinking about it._ _

__“I think I need you to do it.”_ _

__Tess manages to roll her eyes and look sympathetic at the same time. “Put your hand under the table. I’ll do it now.”_ _

__“Won’t someone notice?”_ _

__“There’s like,” Tess breaks off and does a quick head count, “four other people here, aside from staff, and two of them are old as fuck, and the other two are stoned as fuck. No one’s going to notice.”_ _

__“Fine,” Jimmy grumbles and sticks his hands under the table. Tess takes his hand in both of hers and maps out the break with her fingers. He can’t help thinking that Edgar was more gentle, his fingers softer. Poor guy probably wouldn’t have the guts to break anyone’s bones, even if they deserved it._ _

__“Okay, so on the count of three-”_ _

__“I know what you’re going to do,” Jimmy interrupts, “and it’s not going to work.”_ _

__“What?” Tess asks, way too innocently._ _

__“You’re going to do that thing where you say you’re going to break it on three, but then you break it on one or two, but it won’t work because I’m expecting it.”_ _

__“No, I’m not.”_ _

__“Yes, you are! You-”_ _

__Tess breaks his finger._ _

__“Fuck!” Jimmy yelps._ _

__“I knew you were going to argue with me,” Tess says, and she looks smug. Rude. “Now shut up, our food’s here.”_ _

__Jimmy tries not to sulk and in the process, forgets exactly where it is they’re eating and takes a huge bite of burger. Turns out, every part of it is terrible. Like, really fucking disgusting. He spits it out on the plate and wipes his mouth with the napkin._ _

__“You’re so gross,” Tess says. She takes a bite of her burger, and Jimmy’s never understood why people say that people turn green when they’re sick until now. She sets the burger down and spits the bite out into her napkin._ _

__“Who’s gross now?” Jimmy asks._ _

__Tess glares at him. “I will throw this at you.”_ _

__“How about you don’t do that and try the shakes instead?”_ _

__Tess rolls her eyes and takes a sip. Her eyes bug out. “If I was a selfish person,” she says slowly, “I would say they’re terrible and keep them both for myself.”_ _

__Jimmy sips his and moans. It’s just the right consistency and not too sweet. Tess looks at him over her own shake, scandalized. He drinks more and makes another, even more obscene noise. She throws her straw wrapper at him._ _

__“I actually hate you,” she says, but she’s smiling, and Jimmy thinks that maybe, somehow, things will be less shitty._ _

__Maybe._ _


	3. Chapter 2.5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is just group chat nonsense

**St. Jimmy posted an image.**

**St. Jimmy:** _GUYS LOOK WHAT I FOUND_

**Edgelord:** _Oh dear._

**Edgelord has changed his name to Jesus of Suburbia.**

**Jazz Hands:** _omg_

**Devi:** _Edgar, no._

**Jesus of Suburbia has changed his name to Johnny.**

**Queerly Bruhloved:** _edgar why is there a dead rat on your face?_

**Johnny has changed his name to Knee.**

**Edgay:** _Where did you get this?_

**Knee has changed his name to Johnny.**

**St. Jimmy:** _staff picks are on the school’s website. you look stupid._

**Johnny has changed his name to Jesus of Suburbia.**

**Edgay:** _Thanks._

**Jesus of Suburbia has changed his name to FUCK OFF JIMMY.**

**Jazz Hands:** _you doing ok johnny?_

**FUCK OFF JIMMY has changed his name to No Fuck You.**

**Devi:** _I think it’s safe to assume he’s not. Edgar what on earth possessed you to grow that thing on your face?_

**Queerly Bruhloved:** _seriously, soul patches are like twenty years out of style_

**Devi:** _Soul patches were never in style._

**Edgay:** _For the record, I had a boyfriend who thought they looked good. He died in a car crash, and I’ve kept it since._

**Jazz Hands:** _D’:_

**St. Jimmy:** _fuck dude_

**Queerly Bruhloved:** _holy shit i’m so sorry_

**Devi:** _Are you serious?_

**Edgay:** _No, I just think your all assholes._

**No Fuck You:** _you’re*_

**Edgay:** _I will personally kill you._

**No Fuck You has changed his name to Jesus of Suburbia.**

**Jazz Hands:** _fuck you, i almost started crying i felt so bad_

**Edgay:** _Sorry, Tess/Tenna._

**Edgay:** _I lost track again._

**Jazz Hands:** _it’s tenna_

**Queerly Bruhloved:** _and by process of elimination, i’m Tess. so why did you have that dead hamster on your face?_

**St. Jimmy:** _i thought you called it a dead rat_

**Edgay:** _Please stop comparing my fashion mishap to a dead rodent. Besides, anything you can think of, I can guarantee my kids have already thought of and said._

**Jazz Hands:** _K I D S?????_

**Jesus of Suburbia:** _you’re a father?_

**Edgay:** _WAIT NO_

**Edgay:** _I meant my students._

**Queerly Bruhloved:** _oh thank god_

**Edgay:** _I call them my kids because they are kids, and I care about them. But yeah, they bullied the beard right off._

**St. Jimmy:** _this is the greatest day of my life_

**Devi:** _Why did you listen to them? They’re like thirteen._

**Edgay:** _First of all, they’re like fourteen. Second of all, I told all my classes that if all the class averages were above 80% on the next quiz then I’d shave. No one got below an 80%. It was so impressive that I held up my end._

**Queerly Bruhloved:** _that’s kind of awesome actually_

**St. Jimmy:** _nothing motivates little shits like the chance to humiliate someone_

**Jesus of Suburbia:** _well you’d know, wouldn’t you_

**St. Jimmy:** _i didn’t come here to be roasted_

**Jazz Hands:** _BUT IT’S HAPPENING_

**St. Jimmy:** _fuck off_

**Devi:** _That seems like it’d be really embarrassing among the rest of the staff._

**Edgay:** _Nah, they all hated it too, they were just polite enough not to say anything until I’d shaved._

**Edgay:** _That’s not even the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to me anyway._

**Jazz Hands:** _well don’t stop there_

**Queerly Bruhloved:** _seriously, you can’t say something like that and not expect us to pester you_

**St. Jimmy:** _c’mon babe, tell us_

**Edgay:** _I’m not your babe, but sure. It’s not even that funny._

**Jazz Hands:** _YESSS_

**Edgay:** _When I was a sophomore in high school, I played soccer, and I had a crush on this senior on the team and decided I was going to impress him by doing a bycicle kick. Only problem is I couldn’t do a bycicle kick. I ended up breaking my collarbone._

**Queerly Bruhloved:** _but did he date you?_

**Edgay:** _No. He’s straight. And kind of ended up being a douchebag to be honest._

**Jazz Hands:** _straight men are the worst_

**Devi:** _That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said all day._

**Jazz Hands:** _R U D E_

**Devi has changed her name to Whatsername.**

**Whatsername has changed her name to Devi.**

**Devi:** _Jimmy, you know my name. Fuck off._

**St. Jimmy:** _Fine._

**Queerly Bruhloved has changed her name to Whatsername.**

**Whatsername:** _what’s with the sudden obsession with American Idiot?_

**St. Jimmy:** _i finally got a decent cd_

**Whatsername:** _is that code for “i stole a decent copy”_

**Whatsername:** _answer me jimmy_

**Jazz Hands:** _what are you his mom?_

**St. Jimmy:** _i plead the fifth_

**Whatsername:** _did you message edgar in another chat to ask what that is?_

**St. Jimmy:** _no_

**Edgay:** _Yes._

**St. Jimmy:** _EDGAR I TRUSTED YOU_

**Edgay:** _That’s not my fault._

**Jesus of Suburbia:** _why am i the jesus of suburbia_

**St. Jimmy:** _cause u a bitch and so is he_

**Jesus of Suburbia:** _then you should really be him_

**St. Jimmy:** _fuck no, st jimmy’s hardcore as fuck_

**Edgay:** _Isn’t he the antagonist?_

**Whatsername:** _Sort of. He’s a figment of JoS’s imagination, but both of them are assholes. whatsername is the only good person in the entire album, and she gets screwed by them. not literally, they just put her through hell._

**Devi:** _You guys are nerds._

**Jazz Hands:** _you like green day. everyone likes green day_

**St. Jimmy:** _it’s true_

**Devi:** _I never said I didn’t, I just think you’re all nerds._

**Edgay:** _I’ve never heard the whole album._

**St. Jimmy:** _you’re right, breaking your collarbone isn’t the most embarrassing thing you’ve done. this is._

**Edgay:** _I’m sure I’m not the only one here who hasn’t heard the whole thing._

**Jazz Hands:** _i have_

**Devi:** _Me too. Looks like Jimmy was right for once._

**Jimmy:** _i’m going to ignore that_

**Edgar:** _Okay, well even if it is the most embarrassing thing I’ve done, which it’s not, it’s probably less embarrassing than anything any of you have done._

**Jazz Hands:** _this is 110% a trap but i don’t care. y’all need to spill._

**Jesus of Suburbia:** _i nominate being involved in this conversation for mine._

**Jesus of Suburbia has changed his name to Edgelord 2.0.**

**Whatsername:** _can you calm down for like five seconds_

**Edgelord 2.0 has changed his name to Johnny.**

**Johnny:** _No._

**Whatsername:** _i snorted pepper once_

**Devi:** _Tess!_

**Jazz Hands:** _WHY_

**St. Jimmy:** _did you get a nosebleed?_

**Whatsername:** _ok so i was with a foster fam at the time, and we went out to dinner, all seven of us, and i was about the oldest, so the adults weren’t paying much attention to six year old tess. which was a mistake, bc i was staring at the pepper and thinking about how in cartoons pepper always made people sneeze, but it never made me sneeze. so i poured some in my hand and sniffed it. no sneeze. i decided that wasn’t thorough enough and tipped my head back to POUR PEPPER INTO MY NOSE LIKE THE TINY FOOL I WAS and sneezed so hard i hit my head on the table_

**Devi:** _Oh my GOD TESS_

**Jazz Hands:** _I’M CACKLING_

**Edgay:** _This is the best thing I’ve ever heard._

**St. Jimmy:** _that explains so much_

**Whatsername:** _rude_

**Devi:** _One time I went on a date with a guy who got explosive diarrhea halfway through. He literally shit his pants and ran off screaming that someone put poop in his pants. I wanted to die._

**Johnny:** _I am so sorry._

**Jazz Hands:** _oh i remember that! that was bad_

**Whatsername:** _this is why i’m a lesbian_

**Edgay:** _That’s one of the grossest things I’ve ever heard._

**Johnny:** _well i’d love to contribute to this engaging conversation but my shift starts in ten minutes._

**St. Jimmy:** _well that’s pretty confuckingvenient_

**Johnny:** _Toodle-loo!_

**Johnny has left the chat.**

**St. Jimmy:** _dick_

**Johnny has changed his name to Fuckhead.**

**Whatsername:** _feel better?_

**St. Jimmy:** _a bit._

**Edgay:** _In that case, why don’t you share an embarrassing moment?_

**St. Jimmy:** _ok no one said we had to do that so i’m taking a hard fucking pass_

**Jazz Hands:** _you’re no fun_

**St. Jimmy:** _well why don’t you share one since you’re so eager_

**Jazz Hands:** _alright. one time i was so nervous about a crush i had on a girl that i accidentally dated a guy for two weeks._

**Jazz Hands:** _i am a lesbian_

**Edgay:** _How do you accidentally date someone?_

**Whatsername:** _i’d like to say i’m shocked but i’m really not_

**Jazz Hands:** _he had a crush on me and asked me out and i panicked and said yes_

**Jazz Hands:** _also, rude tess_

**Devi:** _She complained to me the entire two weeks and for several days after that._

**Jazz Hands:** _pft, you love me_

**Devi:** _Unfortunately._

**Jazz Hands:** _FUCKING RUDE_

***

**Fuckhead:** _I’VE BEEN GONE FOR AN HOUR WHY ARE THERE 217 MESSAGES YOU MONSTERS_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate coding so i hope y'all appreciate this


	4. Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Squee's here! What the fuck is a Squee? Plus more pining and group chat shenanigans!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to Chokopoppo for letting me gently roast her in half of this dialogue and for proofreading for me. She just fixed my notes, I'd be lost without her.

Jimmy can hear Devi before he even gets into the bookshop. She’s not yelling, but her voice is strained like she wants to. He can’t make out what she’s saying, but she sounds seriously pissed. Johnny’s voice responds in short, angry bursts like breaking glass, nothing like his normal rambling. As he gets closer, he can hear Tess and Edgar’s voices layering over each other, almost inaudible. There’s another scent as he approaches the door, one he doesn’t recognize. It’s not bad, but there’s something under the surface that’s unpleasantly familiar, dried sweat and unwashed clothes. He pauses with his hand on the knob. Maybe he should just come back later.

Tenna opens the door, looking unusually serious. “Johnny brought a kid,” she says flatly. “We’re having a meeting. Tess was just about to call you.”

“Edgar’s here,” Jimmy says because it’s the simplest thing to focus on right now. He can’t picture Johnny with a kid, can’t even imagine Johnny having a kid of his own. It’s like trying to imagine a cheerful Devi, profoundly wrong.

“He’s watching Todd while the rest of us talk,” Tenna says, “and he’s not happy about being left out, so we need to hurry. Don’t forget to put your brace on.”

“It makes my finger sweaty,” Jimmy grumbles, but pulls the finger brace out of his pocket and slides it on. After some quick googling, Tess had announced he’d need to wear a brace around Edgar for about four weeks, and Jimmy hated the damn thing. It was clunky and awkward and made it hard for him to do much of anything with his right hand. Thank fuck he could take it off when Edgar wasn’t around.

He follows Tenna back to the office, catching Edgar’s gaze as he passes where he’s sitting on the now cleanish floor with a kid who can’t be any older than eight. The kid (Tenna had called him Todd, right?) picks up a book from the enormous pile in front of him and starts chattering at Edgar about why he thinks they should keep it even though the cover’s torn. Edgar breaks Jimmy’s gaze and smiles at the kid.

Tess’ voice rises sharply from the back, yelling, probably at Johnny. “You can’t just take a kid!”

“Shit,” Tenna says. “I told them not to yell while Todd’s around.”

“Do you like him?” Jimmy asks.

“He’s a kid,” she says. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Jimmy looks back over his shoulder. The shelves have hidden Edgar and Todd from view, but he can hear them talking in serious tones about the qualities of Magic Tree House books. Maybe if he’d been younger and less angry, Johnny would’ve helped him too. Something black and furious rolls through his stomach to settle under his ribcage.

“I told you guys to keep it down!” Tenna hisses. Jimmy shuffles in behind her. Johnny stands alone in the corner of the room, a dead man on trial with his chin lifted high. The black thing in Jimmy shudders with anger and something that feels like grief. He’d thought Johnny was going to help him, he’d seemed like he cared, and he’d left. His fists clench at his sides.

“Sorry,” Tess says. Her hair sticks up like she’s been running her hands through it. She does just that, tugging on the short strands and sighing heavily. “I just… Jesus, Johnny, what’ve you gotten yourself into?”

“The fuck’s going on?” Jimmy asks, interrupting whatever Johnny was about to say. “Why’s there a brat in the store?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Johnny snarls, actually makes a gutteral noise in his throat, and lurches at Jimmy, only to be restrained by Devi. “Leave Squee alone!”

“Squee?” What the fuck is a squee?

“Todd,” Devi says, still keeping a firm grip on Johnny’s arm. “He’s Johnny’s neighbor, and his parents suck. Apparently Johnny’s been doing his best to take care of him for the past year or so.”

Jimmy feels… well he doesn’t know but it’s _wrong_ , like the first time he’d turned and felt his bones popping and rearranging into something broken and unnatural. He feels eyes on him and looks up to meet Johnny’s impassive gaze with a glare. There’s nothing in those dark eyes, no guilt or apology, and for a moment, Jimmy hates him.

“That so?” He asks with as much self restraint as he can manage. His control is slipping, and his fingernails ache to become claws, to tear at something. He wants to run out of the office to where the air feels a little less choking.

“Yes,” Johnny says. “Someone has to, and it’s not gonna be the miserable excuses for humanity he calls parents.”

And what about me, Jimmy wants to ask. What about my miserable excuses for parents? “So what’s the big problem?”

“Todd can’t stay in that house,” Devi says. “His mom’s a junkie and his dad hates him. They haven’t hit him-” she glances at Johnny, who shakes his head.

“But they could start,” Jimmy finishes for her. He glares at Johnny again. “Why haven’t you done anything?”

“My house is barely fit for me to live in,” Johnny says, “I can’t bring Squee over in good conscience.”

“You can’t take a kid anyway,” Tess says. “The cops would be all over your ass.”

“His parents don’t care enough to file a missing persons,” Johnny spits.

Jimmy is shaking. It starts in his bones and makes him want to puke. He wants to scream and break something. “So, what? You won’t call CPS because they won’t let you have custody of him? Sounds pretty fucking selfish to me.”

“You’d know all about-”

“Yeah, yeah, I fucking would.” Johnny looks taken aback by Jimmy’s interruption, and he bulldozes on. “But we’re not talking about me.”

“Jimmy,” Tess cautions, stepping closer to him, “the foster system can be pretty awful, believe me, I know.”

“Can’t be worse than whatever he’s living in now,” Jimmy says. He jabs his finger at Johnny. “You don’t care about, what’d you call him, Squee? You don’t care about him at all. You’re just using him so you can pat your back and tell yourself what a good person you are while he rots in whatever nightmare you leave h-”

Johnny moves faster than any of them can react, wrenching himself free from Devi’s grip and slashing Jimmy across the face, half transformed and snarling. Blood washes over Jimmy’s face, dripping into his eye, and hot as the pain. He’s aware of Tess yelling beside him, Tenna and Devi wrestling Johnny down, and a sudden silence on the other side of the door.

“Edgar,” he gasps. His skin itches as it knits back together, and he knows he’ll be healed before Edgar gets to the door, but he’s covered in his own blood for the second time in seven days and none of them need that kind of mess on their hands. Tess lets go of his shoulders (he hadn’t even notice her grab him) and curses.

“I’ll deal with that,” she says to the room in general, then softly to him. “Take a walk, you’re shaking.” She wipes a smear of blood on the shoulder of his shirt, adding another garish stain to a white shirt he hadn’t even known he owned, and hurries out the door. Jimmy casts one look at the rest of them, Johnny glaring up at him from where Tenna and Devi have pinned him to the floor, and storms out the back door.

***

Jimmy doesn’t go back to the bookshop for a couple days and ignores the buzzing of his phone. It’s by far the most boring two days of his life, with the phrase “licking his wounds” ironically relevant, and the work to home to work to home routine might kill him before Johnny gets a chance. He’s not entirely sure how he got hired as a dishwasher at a half decent restaurant with no resume, a sloppy dye job, and hair he’d cut in the bathroom of a shit bar, but he suspects it has something to do with keeping him squirreled away in the back. He sort of hates it, but it keeps a roof over his head, even if his hands are dry and cracking after every shift.

Said roof over his head is what makes him break his silence to the rest of the world. The four walls of his apartment (bare, gray, water damaged at the ceiling by the bathroom, which carries implications he tries hard not to think about) start to feel more and more like a prison cell. It’s not exactly comfortable either, since neither mattresses or empty cable spools were designed to be sat on for as long as he likes to spend lounging around. His sound system is nice, as it should be, he built it himself, but turns out a nice stereo isn’t much good with only two cd’s. He needs to get out, mostly because he’s running low on toilet paper and that’s the one thing he refuses to run out of. He picks up his phone.

There’s close to eight hundred new messages in the group chat, about thirty from Tess, fourteen from Tenna, six from Devi, and surprisingly, ten from Edgar. He taps Edgar’s name. The first three are from the day of the fight, then one for each of the two days he’s been holed up in his apartment. All the rest are from today.

 **Edgar:** _Are you okay? Tess said you and Johnny got in a fight._

 **Edgar:** _I’m assuming you don’t have signal, and that’s why you’re not answering, but please let us know if you’re okay._

 **Edgar:** _Don’t do anything stupid._

 **Edgar:** _Tess told me what happened with you and Johnny, and I do think you have a point. Todd needs to get out of that house before things get any worse. That being said, Todd’s also very attached to Johnny, and vice versa. It wouldn’t be good for him to be taken away from that. We’re meeting up tomorrow morning, and Devi says you have to come, but I’m texting to say you only have to come if you feel up to it._

 **Edgar:** _Okay so obviously you weren’t at the meeting so here’s what we’ve decided: Todd’s going to spend as much time as he can at his friend Pepito’s house. Johnny’s going to gather as much evidence as he can for a case to CPS. Todd’s probably going to spend a lot of time at the shop with us so Johnny can watch him and keep him away from home. I know you’re upset, but this is going to be okay._

 **Edgar:** This is the third day in a row I’ve gone without some kind of lewd text and quite frankly, I’m concerned. Are you okay?

 **Edgar:** _Seriously, are you okay?_

 **Edgar:** _Tess says you’re fine, but I know she knows your address and I’m not above making her tell me so I can check on you myself._

 **Edgar:** _That sounded less creepy in my head._

 **Edgar:** _Answer your phone you little shit_

Jimmy can’t help grinning as he types out a reply.

 **Jimmy:** _aw babe, i didn’t know you cared_

 **Edgar:** _You’ve been AWOL for three days. It’s enough to make a guy worry._

 **Edgar:** _Still not your babe._

 **Jimmy:** _soon ;*_

 **Edgar:** _Keep dreaming. Anyway, Devi’s got Tenna and I sanding bookshelves to restain them, and we could use your help. I’d love to phrase this one as an ‘if you’re up for it,’ but Devi seemed pretty insistent. I believe her exact words were “tell him to get his skinny ass over here before I make him.”_

 **Jimmy:** _you type like an old man lol_

 **Jimmy:** _and how the fuck am i supposed to sand with a broken finger?_

**Edgar:** _“He’s got two hands, doesn’t he?”_

**Jimmy:** _i hate her_

 **Edgar:** _No, you don’t. And you can just help me with this one. Tess just came over to help Tenna and now she’s winning._

 **Jimmy:** _competative much?_

 **Edgar:** _I’m a soccer coach. You have no idea._

Jimmy thinks back to Edgar’s arms with the sleeves rolled up and his thighs in the worn out jeans from the other day, and yeah, he can see it. He wants to see it, Edgar in shorts and all sweaty with his neatly combed hair all messed up. The shorts are only optional, really.

 **Jimmy:** _fine i’ll be there in ten_

***

Technically the walk to Devi’s bookstore, still as frustratingly nameless as the void where a sign had protected the paint from sun bleaching, is fifteen minutes, but if he takes shortcuts across rooftops, well, who can blame him? Jumping over impossible alleyways is the closest he’ll ever come to flying, jacket flapping in that temporary weightlessness before free falling and rolling onto the roof of the next building.

When Jimmy walks in the shop, a wave of heat and the stink of sweat nearly force him back out again. The air is thick with dust motes swirling in the fresh breeze, and when Jimmy walks in, books have been stacked on either side in mountains as tall as him. Tess and Tenna are sanding at a shelf on one wall, and Edgar scrubs furiously at one on the opposite wall. They’re all soaked with sweat and rank as fuck.

“It’s hotter than Satan’s well fucked asshole,” Jimmy comments and takes off his jacket. He hates to ruin the look he’s got going, but he’s already working up a sweat just standing around.

“Please never use that phrase again,” Edgar says, pausing to give Jimmy a look like he’s lost his mind. His face is flushed and sweaty,with his hair sticking up wildly, and he’s panting a bit from sanding. He looks like he’s just been fucked, actually, and Jimmy’s mouth goes very dry. It’s unfair really. Jimmy’s only human, sorta, metaphorically speaking, how’s he supposed to react with anything other than _want_ to that? He closes the door just for an excuse to look away.

“Prop the door open.” Tenna stops sanding to flop dramatically on the nearest stack of books. She must not’ve been told what she was doing today, because she’s wearing a pastel blue and purple tutu with a black corset top. “It can’t be hotter out there than it is in here.”

“It’s not,” Jimmy confirms and pulls a bible out of a stack to hold the door open. He feels eyes on him and looks up to see Edgar giving him an unimpressed look. He shugs and walks over.

“It was the biggest book I saw,” Jimmy says. “Nothing personal.” 

He’s not lying per se. Christians are preachy as fuck on a good day, and he’ll never be able to smell incense without being pulled back to those stuffy Catholic masses in itchy sweaters with his mom pinching him if he so much as sniffles, but Jesus sounded like he was pretty alright. There was that whole thing with the whip in the temple, that was cool.

“Other people may not see it that way,” Edgar says.

“It’s just a book,” Jimmy says. “Some people would be pissed if you put, I dunno, fucking Harry Potter out to prop a door. Now show me what the shit we’re doing.”

Edgar stares at Jimmy like he’s working on a particularly difficult math problem, then glances at Jimmy’s shirt, and his whole expression shifts to something between confusion and unwilling amusement. “Seriously?”

“What?” Jimmy crosses his arms.

“That is a fishnet shirt,” Edgar says, “and a crop top.”

“So?”

“So you knew we were going to be sanding bookshelves.”

 

“I have a reputation to maintain.”

Edgar rolls his eyes skyward and scrubs a hand over his mouth. “You and Tenna, I swear to god.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jimmy says and waves a hand impatiently. “I’m gay and dramatic. Now tell me what we’re doing.” He pushes his sleeves up and crosses his arms again. Edgar gives him a long look, lingering for just a fraction on Jimmy’s exposed stomach and the jut of his hip bones. It’s over in a blink, but that doesn’t stop the rolling heat from dragging itself down his spine.

“Pretty much just what I said in the text,” Edgar says, and it takes Jimmy a minute to remember what they’re talking about. 

“Why isn’t Devi helping?” Jimmy asks. “This would go way faster with six people instead of four.”

“She and Johnny went to get some kind of electric sander.” Edgar flexes his fingers and eyes the block wrapped in sandpaper with distaste. He looks back at Jimmy, up through his eyelashes and so sincere that Jimmy wants get as far away as possible from that softness. “No one’s mad at you, you know.”

The fear and, yeah, okay, lust drops away to be replaced by that old rage, begging for him to slip it on like an old jacket. He holds off for a moment, grits his teeth and clenches his fists against his ribs. “I don’t care what Johnny thinks about me.”

Edgar looks like he might say something else, skepticism and sympathy in equal measures on his face. _Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?_ It’s not, Jimmy thinks angrily. Johnny could think he’s the most miserable human waistoid to claw his way out of the shit hole, Jimmy doesn’t care. He knows himself well enough to know that he’ll feel differently in a few more days when the anger is less raw, but he also knows himself well enough to know he’s not going to do anything about it. 

“Give me a fucking sander,” Jimmy snaps before Edgar can say anything. 

Edgar raises an eyebrow but hands over an extra sander with nothing more than a “watch your finger.” They settle into the work, or at least Edgar does, sloughing away at the flaking stain with an impressive scowl. Jimmy can’t find a rhythm between Edgar’s proximity and his scent. He’d sort of known that Edgar’s got a couple inches on him, but with the way he’s got to hunch to reach to lower shelf and Edgar reaching to get the upper shelf, it feels uncomfortably like spooning while standing up. And _god_ , the scent is overwhelming. Coffee-sweat-cinnamon that he’s starting to associate with Edgar wraps around him like a blanket and makes his mouth water. 

It’s as close to silent as it can get with the door letting in the sounds of a downtown shit hole and four people fighting a losing battle with million year old stain, and Jimmy wants to scream. Edgar mumbles an apology as he grabs Jimmy’s shoulder for balance. The touch doesn’t linger but Jimmy has goosebumps all the way down his arms wants to pull his hand back to his shoulder and hold it there until his heart calms down. Fuck, he should say something, something interesting.

“The posters in your classroom are stupid.” Well _fuck_ his brain to mouth filter apparently.

“Excuse me?”

“Those bullshit motivational posters,” Jimmy continues, because he’s not just going to apologize and look like even more of an idiot. “They’re stupid.”

“Um,” Edgar says.

“Your whole thing is that your students like you, right?” Jimmy says, and Edgar looks surprised. Shit. Jimmy probably shouldn’t have been able to remember that. He plows on anyway. “Well no one likes those posters. They’re condescending and shit.”

“Condescending,” Edgar repeats and raises an eyebrow.

“And shit.” Jimmy nods. Never let anyone say he’s not good at bullshitting his way through life. “No one wants to read about how hard work or dreaming a lot will get you to the top, ‘cause that’s not how the world works. If you want your students to think you’re cool, put up movie posters or something interesting. Shit, put up the poster for that god awful nineties _Romeo and Juliet_ , anything but the motivational fuckery.”

Both of Edgar’s eyebrows have risen above the frames of his glasses now. “Motivation helps people. And you remember that movie?”

Jimmy snorts. “I’m not likely to forget that nightmare of neon and glitter. And some generic bullshit over a sunset isn’t fucking motivation. No one buys that fake ass shit.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Edgar says after a long moment, and Jimmy blinks in surprise. He hadn’t expected to be taken seriously. 

“I- fine. Okay.” 

“Okay,” Edgar says. His lips curl in a confused smile, and Jimmy’s cheeks warm. He looks away and resumes sanding. It’s several seconds before he hears Edgar working behind him.

***

 **Jimmy:** _ok, so i know why i was dressed the way i was today, what’s your excuse?_

 **10:** _dev didn’t tell me what we were doing today_

 **Jimmy:** _bullshit you live with her try again_

 **10:** _well what abt u? fishnet isn’t practical_

 **Jimmy:** _i have an aesthetic to maintain_

 **10:** _well so do i_

 **Jimmy:** _i’ve never seen you wear anything like that ever in my life_

 **10:** _i’m pastel goth!!!!_

 **Jimmy:** _yeah but a corset and a tutu?_

 **Jimmy:** _holy shit do you have a crush on tess?_

 **10:** _i’m ignoring u_

 **Jimmy:** _holy fuck you do_

 **10:** _I SAID I’M IGNORING U_

 **Jimmy:** _aren’t you dating devi though?_

 **10:** _sorta? it’s complicated and not super ur business_

 **Jimmy:** _ok but you might wanna try something a little classier for tess_

 **10:** _that’s rich coming from u mr fishnet_

 **Jimmy:** _it wasn’t that bad_

 **10:** _fishnets are not and never have been classy. u had a whole nipple out_

 **Jimmy:** _I HAD A CROP TOP_

 **10:** _and i know u have a crush on edgay. everyone knows. u ain’t slick_

 **Jimmy:** _I’M LEAVING_

***

Two days later, Devi and Johnny are an hour late from a trip to get stain for the shelves, partly because Tess pestered them into picking up enough pizza to concern Edgar, a feeling that only seems to be increased when Johnny files in behind Devi with six pizza boxes in his arms and a small human on his back. 

“Squee’s here too,” Johnny announces, pretty unnecessarily in Jimmy’s opinion, but the food smells so good that he sort of forgets that he’s still pissed at him. “Devi’s got stain, but that’s less fun. Unless you wanted to poison or drown someone. I guess you could try and mummify someone but resin works better for that.” 

Todd makes a terrified noise, and Johnny’s stupid nickname makes a lot more sense.

“Relax,” Johnny says, “there’s much more effective ways of killing someone.”

“I doubt that’s the problem,” Tess says as she pulls her pizza (Hawaiian, disgusting), then looks at Todd. “Don’t worry, no one’s killing anyone.”

Edgar looks scandalized then rolls his eyes. “You people are so weird.”

Devi snorts and hands Edgar his pizza (small, the martyr). “You have no idea.”

“You’re still hanging out with us,” Johnny points out, carefully maneuvering so Todd can climb off his back without dropping- nope, Jimmy’s pizza starts to slide off the stack. He catches it and scowls at Johnny, who ignores him. A stomach rumbles, and it takes Jimmy a second to realize it’s not his. He looks down.

Todd shuffles between him and Johnny, and christ, the kid is tiny, barely hip high to Johnny, who isn’t exactly reaching for the stars himself. Jimmy catches his eye, does a quick count of pizza boxes (six), and looks back at Todd. “Where’s your food, kid?”

Todd startles at the attention and looks at a spot on Jimmy’s shoulder. “Nny and I are sharing.”

Jimmy tries to pretend his use of the nickname doesn’t sting, or at least tries to keep it off his face. It’s not the kid’s fault Johnny’s a raging asshole. 

“You and Nny look a lot alike,” Todd says, looking back and forth between them. The look on Johnny’s face makes Jimmy laugh.

“I look nothing like that pasty toenail clipping!” 

Well never fucking mind then. Jimmy glares at Johnny, feels the rage that’s been simmering boil up under his skin, and opens his mouth to-

“Edgar, are you okay?” Devi’s voice cuts through the white noise, and Jimmy turns in time to see Edgar’s hand fall away from his head and a pained look melt away to a stoic mask.

“I’m fine,” Edgar says, “just a headache. I’m probably just dehydrated.”

There’s something odd about the statement. Edgar’s heart doesn’t speed up or trip like he’s lying, and there’s no sudden smell of adrenaline, but there’s still something about the way he says the words. Like each one has been carefully chosen and recited a thousand times, or it’s a half truth. Jimmy’s rage doesn’t leave him, but it slides quietly to the back burner as he frowns and sits next to Edgar. He’s already eaten half his pizza.

“Hungry much?” Jimmy asks, and winces internally. He’s so shit at small talk.

Edgar swallows. “And you’re not?”

“Guess so,” Jimmy says, and shoves half a slice into his mouth at once. Edgar wrinkles his nose at him.

“You’re disgusting.”

Jimmy shrugs, and they eat in silence for a while. Edgar finishes his pizza so fast that if Jimmy didn’t know better, he’d think Edgar was a werewolf too. When he looks up, Edgar’s eyeing Jimmy’s pizza while trying to look like he’s not. Jimmy glances down. He’s got plenty left.

“You want a slice?” 

“I shouldn’t,” Edgar says, already reaching. He takes one of the bigger slices, and Jimmy’s pretty sure if it was anyone else, he’d be pissed. He tries not to think about that.

“Asshole,” he says on principle, but there’s no bite to it. They lapse back into quiet, and when Jimmy catches Edgar looking at another slice after he finishes the first one, he sighs and hands it over. Edgar takes it with a murmured thanks.

“Your hands are really dry,” Edgar says after swallowing.

Jimmy shrugs. “I wash dishes. Job hazard I guess.” He doesn’t add that he’s annoyed supernatural healing doesn’t extend to dry skin. Any cracks seal up like putty, but the backs of his hands still look scaly and gross.

“I’d offer lotion but I think I left it at home,” Edgar says, and Jimmy gives him a funny look.

“You just carry lotion around with you?”

“Some of us don’t like to look like scaly gremlins all the time,” Edgar says with a half smile, and Jimmy’s heart tries to leap into his throat and drop into his intestines at the same time. Not to be incredibly fucking gay, but it feels like the sun peaking out from behind the clouds, a warmth so different from the burn his old anger gives him.

“That’s gay,” Jimmy says, because he can see Tess and the rest of them out of the corner of his eye, and because the way his anger on the backburner slips even further away feels like finding a gap in the armor he hadn’t known existed.

“Astute observation,” Edgar says, and laughs. Jimmy blushes. He’s so fucked.

***

 **Jimmy:** _i know it’s 4 am but when you said everyone knows i have a crush on edgar, you meant everyone but edgar, right?_

 **10:** _gay lol_

 **Jimmy:** _tenna i’m being serious_

 **10:** _gay lol_

 **Jimmy:** _you know what i’m just gonna go to bed_

 **10:** _gay lol_

***

There’s something so freeing about running as a wolf. He’s not really a wolf, none of them are. Devi and Tenna had explained that full transformations are pretty rare and just for alphas. Instead, they’re all caught somewhere in between human and wolf. Jimmy’s not sure he could properly describe the transformation, except that he’s lost several shirts and one pair of jeans he really couldn’t afford to lose. He’d had to go and buy a pair of athletic shorts so he wasn’t running around the desert buck ass naked.

But god, none of that matters now, with hands and bare toes digging into the baked earth, still warm from the sun, and power running in his veins and pushing him to run, to move, to do _anything._ The stars are so bright he can’t believe he ever thought the night was dark. The band of the milky way floods the desert like a spotlight, leeching to color to something cool and washed out and beautiful in a way he’ll never admit to admiring.

The cheer that pulls out of his chest sounds more like a howl.

***

 **Tess:** _hey, so i think i have a crush on devi and tenna? like at the same time? but they’re already dating? but they keep inviting me over and i feel like i’m third wheeling and getting in the way of them spending time together but i don’t want to lose that time with them bc i really like them?_

 **Jimmy:** _jfc i can’t do this with you right now_

 **Tess:** _i’m serious!_

**Jimmy:** _so am i_

**Tess:** _why did i expect you to be helpful?_

**Jimmy:** _it’s your fault for expecting anything from me the day after a full moon_

**Tess:** _you know what? you’re right_

**Jimmy:** _thank you_

**Tess:** _how dare i expect you to be helpful after the full moon WE ALL WENT THROUGH_

**Jimmy:** _well now i feel bad_

**Tess:** _GOOD_

**Jimmy:** _still not helping with this one_

**Tess:** _fuck_

*** 

The sky threatens rain the day the three strangers walk into the bookshop. Two women with dark hair and darker makeup and beautiful in a severe, unyielding sort of way, and a man trailing behind them looking more like hired muscle than anything else. They’re all wearing black, which would probably be more intimidating were Edgar not standing next to Johnny. 

Johnny tenses next to him, his hands gripping the paintbrush so tight that his knuckles turn white. Across the room, Jimmy and Tenna whisper quickly back and forth until Tenna sets down her can of stain and hurries to the office. No one else speaks. The tension is thick enough to choke on. 

“What do you want, Anne?” Jimmy finally asks. His tone is clipped and more pissed than Edgar’s heard it. He’s sure both hands would be clenched into fists if it weren’t for the finger brace. 

“Who are they?” Edgar whispers to Johnny. One of the women, the short haired one, turns to glare at them. Johnny either doesn’t see or doesn’t care, but when her eyes catch Edgar’s he refuses to look away. Her eyes narrow further, but he just stares back. He won’t be the first to back down. 

“Anne and Dillion are Tess’s exes,” Johnny whispers back. “I didn’t realize they were friends. Not sure who the other woman is.” 

“I want to talk to Tess,” the long haired woman who must be Anne announces. The other woman looks away from Edgar, leaving him with the feeling that he’s just escaped something. 

“She’s busy,” Johnny snaps. Anne glares at him from down her nose. 

“I don’t care,” she says. “I dated her, I should be able to talk to her.” She starts to move towards the back, and Johnny, with an athleticism Edgar hadn’t known he possessed, vaults over the checkout counter and blocks the trio’s path. He’s comically short compared to them, but the look on his face has them stopping in their tracks. 

“She dumped you,” Johnny growls. “Get over it.” 

“I’m just going to talk to her.” Anne tries to push Johnny aside, and he grabs the bookshelves on either side of him. 

“Hey!” Edgar says in the best teacher voice he can muster. Everyone looks at him. Anne even lets go of Johnny. 

“Who the hell are you?” the man (Dillion?) asks. 

“Edgar,” Edgar says. “You can’t just strong arm your way in here and demand to speak to someone.” 

“Especially someone who’s never wanted to talk to you before,” Johnny adds. 

“It won’t take long!” Anne tries to shove past Johnny again. 

“Oh, fuck off!” 

They all jump, or at least Edgar and the two who came with Anne do, as Jimmy slams down his paint can. To be honest, Edgar had sort of forgotten he was there, but he’s glad he is, glaring at Anne like he can set her on fire through sheer force of will. 

“Excuse me?” Anne says. 

“You heard me,” Jimmy snaps. “Fuck off. Tess’s never going to want to talk to you, you ugly, fake ass bitch.” 

“ _What_ did you call me?” Anne moves to loom over Jimmy, a feat only managed by her ridiculous platform boots. Jimmy matches her glare, fists clenched at his sides. 

“I called you an ugly, fake bitch because you are. You bitch and bitch about how mean everyone is to you because you’re goth, then turn around and shit all over anyone who doesn’t meet your standards of what the fuck ever because you’re too stupid to know that goth is all about pushing back against society’s standards and standing up for people. No wonder no one fucking likes you.” 

The booming silence is only broken by the sound of rain starting to fall outside. Edgar hadn’t known Jimmy had cared about goth… philosophy, he guesses. To be honest, he hadn’t really known what Jimmy cared about, or if he even cared about anything. Jimmy exudes an aura of not giving a fuck that Edgar almost envies. 

“I don’t care about that,” Anne says. “Do you really think I’m ugly?” 

Jimmy’s glare doesn’t waver. “Yes.” 

“Ugh!” Anne throws her hands up like she’s a heroine in a silent film. “Are you blind or just stupid?” 

“Neither,” Jimmy says. “It’d probably make dealing with your dumb ass easier though.” 

Anne makes another offended noise and waves to her lackeys. “We’re leaving!” 

To Edgar’s amazement, the three of them file out into the rain. He looks at Jimmy still scowling after them, to Johnny staring and Jimmy with something like grudging respect, and back to Jimmy. 

“Where did that come from?” Edgar finally asks. Jimmy turns to him, expression softening just a bit. 

“I hate people like her,” he says. “All about the aesthetic and music but not not caring about anything else that goes with it.” He shrugs awkwardly. “Plus she’s a bitch to Tess.” 

“I still don’t like you,” Johnny says abruptly, “but just this once you’ve earned my respect.” 

Jimmy’s features go from blank shock to a genuine grin that makes Edgar’s stomach twist in a way he doesn’t want to think about, to being stained with something more self deprecating. 

“Aw, Nny,” Jimmy says with his hand over his heart. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.” 

“Don’t get used to it,” Johnny huffs. “And don’t call me that.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jimmy says, more cheerful than Edgar’s ever heard him. He stares at Jimmy until he catches his gaze. 

“What?” Jimmy asks, that old defensive edge creeping into his voice. Its familiarity is reassuring, and that in itself hollows out Edgar’s chest and settles like a rock behind his sternum. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Johnny head to the back, presumably to get Tenna. 

“Nothing,” Edgar says. “You’re just a much better person than you want people to think.” 

Surprise falls back over Jimmy’s face, eyes widening and lips parting, and he looks incredibly young for a moment, and Edgar feels like he catches a glimpse of some other Jimmy. Then Jimmy glares at him and jabs a finger at him. 

“I’m not one of your brats,” he snaps. “Not everyone is a project for you to fix.” 

He picks up his can of stain and starts painting the bookshelf, and Edgar knows when to push a point, and this isn’t it. He sighs and follows suit. If Johnny and Tenna think there’s anything odd in the air when they get back, they’re polite enough not to mention it. 

*** 

Edgar is woken up at three forty eight in the morning by the pounding in his head and the buzzing of his phone. 

**Jimmy:** _thta relly is th enicest thing nnys ever said to me_

**Jimmy:** _fuck_

**Jimmy:** _im very drunk_

**Jimmy:** _im not lod enough to drink_

**Jimmy:** _fcuk youre a teacher i shoulndtve told you that_

**Jimmy:** _i like your stupid face_

**Jimmy:** _i shouldntve told yuo that either_

**Jimmy:** _forget i siad anyting_

Edgar deletes the texts and tries to fall back asleep. It takes a long time, and when he wakes up, he hasn’t quite forgotten. 

*** 

**Tess Reeds has added Edgar Vargas, Devi Delacruz, Tenna Hayes, and Johnny Calcerrada to the chat.**

**Tess Reeds has changed her name to Tess.**

**Tess:** _guys, jimmy’s birthday is in a couple weeks so we’ve got to throw a party for him_

**Johnny Calcerrada has changed his name to Johnny.**

**Johnny:** _Why?_

**Devi Delacruz has changed her name to Devi.**

**Tenna Hayes has changed her name to 10.**

**Devi:** _Because it’s his birthday._

**Edgar Vargas has changed his name to Edgar.**

**Edgar has changed his name to Edgay.**

**Edgay has changed his name to Edgar.**

**Edgar:** _We are not doing this again._

**10:** _party pooper :p_

**Edgar:** _So how much are we spending for gifts?_

**Devi:** _I wouldn’t go over thirty bucks. Edgar, you don’t have to participate, you’re not really friends with anyone but Tenna and maybe Johnny?_

**Johnny:** _Of course he’s friends with me! He’s my very best friend._

**Edgar:** _Thank you, Nny. And I consider all of you my friends, so I’ll get Jimmy something. I might need help with ideas though._

**10:** _aw edgar you’re so sweet_

**Edgar:** _thanks_

**Johnny:** _I don’t see why i have to participate in this._

**Tess:** _because he got you something for your birthday you ungrateful asstick_

**Devi:** _Everyone is getting a present(s) between $20-30, there will be cake, Tess what day?_

**Johnny:** _fine_

**Tess:** _the sixth_

**Tess:** _and johnny if you try to wiggle out of this i’ll personally kick your entire ass_

**Johnny:** _I SAID FINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

*** 

Work on the shelves goes faster than Edgar had thought it would, and by the end of June, they’re sorting the books by genre on the freshly stained shelves. The walls have gotten a fresh coat too, inside and out, a cheerful buttercup yellow outside and a soft seaglass green that had beaten a pale gray in a fight that almost had Devi and Edgar at blows for the inside. It looks lovely with the dark brown stain. 

Todd comes over most days to help, which mostly involves handing people books and chattering with growing confidence about whatever book Johnny’s gotten ahold of for him. One of Edgar’s favorite moments is when Todd pulls him aside and says in the most serious of voices that he has a boyfriend. 

“Aren’t you a little young for a boyfriend?” Edgar asks. 

Todd shrugs and slurps on one of the juice boxes Devi’s taken to keeping in the mini fridge in the back. “He pushed Nick of the jungle gym for making fun of me. Plus he always bought me a cookie at lunch. They cost a dollar.” 

Edgar nods. “It’s serious then.” 

“Yep!” Todd kicks at the floor. “His name’s Pepito. His dad’s a lawyer, and I can’t remember what his mom does.” Todd spends the next hour regaling Edgar with stories about Pepito and his family, and Edgar never stops smiling. 

Jimmy and Tess are getting closer too, ribbing each other in a very sibling like way and working together on pranking the rest of them, including bringing the worst burgers Edgar’s ever tasted for lunch. They made up for it by also bringing the best shakes Edgar’s ever had. Jimmy’s laugh is bright and genuine for the rest of the day, all mischief in his eyes and quick wit behind his tongue. 

The next day, though, Edgar’s only just walked in the shop before Jimmy drags him out again. His grip threatens to bruise Edgar’s arm. All of yesterday’s good mood has evaporated like it had never existed in the first place. 

“What-” 

“We’re going for a walk,” Jimmy snaps and lets go of Edgar’s arm. He’s storming along at a pace that Edgar almost has to jog to keep up with. Fury flashes in his eyes. 

“Why-” 

“Because you’re the only person I don’t hate right now.” Jimmy pulls out a cigarette and lights it with a match without slowing down and flicks the match off to the side. Edgar watches it burn itself out on the sidewalk and thinks there might be a metaphor there. Jimmy lights another match and throws it aside. And another. And another. Edgar thinks of the scene from Cell Block Tango and wonders if Jimmy’s going to start expositioning at him. He doesn’t, and one of the matches lands in a small puddle of alcohol and flares up before quickly dying. 

“Aren’t you worried about starting a fire?” Edgar asks. 

Jimmy tosses another match to the side and blows a cloud of smoke. “Burning this city to the fucking ground would be the best thing I’d ever do with my life.” 

He makes a move like he’s going stamp out the cigarette on his bare forearm, and Edgar grabs the wrist holding the cigarette on an impulse. 

“Jimmy!” Something in his tone makes Jimmy stop whatever manic spree he’s on, and his eyes, so pale and piercing, focus on Edgar’s face. Silver eyeshadow glints over his eyeliner. “You’re scaring me.” 

Jimmy stares at Edgar until the cherry of the cigarette threatens to burn his fingers. He flicks it away and closes the matchbook, tucking it into his pocket. “Fine. No more fire. Happy?” 

Edgar isn’t, not really, but he nods anyway. Jimmy looks pointedly at his wrist, and Edgar is suddenly very aware of how warm Jimmy is and drops his wrist. “Sorry.” As Jimmy’s hand falls, Edgar notices something. “You’re not wearing your brace.” 

“‘S fine,” Jimmy says. “Doc said I could take it off yesterday.” 

Edgar remembers the horrible bend in Jimmy’s finger, the swelling and bruising. Maybe it looked worse than it was? He wants to ask, but Jimmy takes off before he can, though at a slightly less breakneck pace. Edgar tries a couple times to get Jimmy to talk to him, but he’s stubbornly silent, and eventually Edgar gives up and follows him around blocks and through twisting alleys. When they stop, it’s in the mouth of a narrow alley looking out on an abandoned construction project, a five story steel and concrete skeleton with peeling tarps fluttering sadly in the breeze. Jimmy leans against one wall. Edgar leans against the other. Jimmy lights another cigarette, holds Edgar’s gaze as he snuffs out the match’s flame before tossing it aside, and takes a drag like he’s breathing for the first time. He exhales, and Edgar realizes a tad belatedly that he’s wearing black lipstick. It stains the cigarette between his fingers. 

Jimmy reminds Edgar of a Tolkien elf, albeit one who makes questionable fashion choices and listens to too much punk rock, but there’s something undeniably pretty about him. He’s got a grace about him when he moves, even when flailing around and trying to take up more space than someone so slender has a right to, except for when he shrinks in on himself and becomes still as a statue, stiff controposo in skinny jeans and fishnet gloves. He’d almost fades into the background in those moments if it weren’t for his eyes. Even when he doesn’t wear eyeliner, they hold Edgar’s attention with the soft blue gray haze of an autumn sky. 

Those eyes pierce him now, pinning him as surely as if Jimmy had his arm across Edgar’s throat. It’s just as hard to breathe. A plume of smoke rises from Jimmy’s mouth and hides his eyes. Edgar still feels trapped. 

“Why am I the only person you don’t hate?” Edgar asks. 

Jimmy sucks in more smoke and blows out heavily. “The usual. Johnny’s an ass. Got in a fight with Tess over my wasted potential or what the fuck ever that means, and of course Devi and Tenna took her side because of whatever pining lesbian bullshit’s going on there.” He throws the cigarette on the ground and grinds it under his heel. “Apparently if I’m not commiting suicide by student loan debt I’m pissing my life away. I barely graduated high school, but she doesn’t give a shit that I’m not smart enough for-” 

“You’re smart,” Edgar interjects. 

“Don’t you start too!” Jimmy jabs a third cigarette at him, and they’re close enough that the motion causes some ash to fall on Edgar’s shoe. He kicks it off and doesn’t meet Jimmy’s eyes. The spray of freckles on his face continues down the side of his neck. 

“I’m not going to apologize,” Edgar says calmly, “but I’m not going to push you either. College isn’t for everyone.” 

Jimmy sulks back against the wall and takes a slow drag. “I’m not smart,” he repeats, like it’s something he needs to believe as much as he needs Edgar to believe. “I’m not smart.” 

“That’s bullshit,” Edgar says. “Everyone’s smart about something. School just doesn’t always show it. Now what are you good at?” 

“Physics was the only class I didn’t fail my senior year?” Jimmy offers. 

Edgar shakes his head. “First of all, if you graduated then there’s no way you failed all your classes. Second, I’m not talking about school anyway. What are you good at in general? What do you like to do?” 

Jimmy shuffles his feet and stares out at the construction project. A clump of over gelled hair falls in his face. He doesn’t bother moving it. 

“I like music,” he says finally. “But I can’t sing or play an instrument, so that’s not exactly helpful is it?” 

“Maybe.” Edgar shrugs. “Maybe not. What do you do in your spare time?” 

“If this is speed dating, you picked a hell of a spot.” Jimmy tosses another match into a puddle for emphasis. 

“I followed you,” Edgar says. 

Jimmy pauses. “Fuck. You got me there.” 

“Hobbies, Jimmy,” Edgar prompts. “What do you do in your spare time?” 

“What do _you_ do in your spare time?” 

“If I answer, will you?” 

“Maybe.” 

“Fine,” Edgar sighs. “I read a lot, but that’s not surprising since I’m an English teacher. I watch a lot of HGTV so I can yell at the straight white couples with no taste. I like to cook but I haven’t done much of that lately. I volunteer to teach soccer at the youth center when it’s the school’s off season because that’s the only time I get to play anymore. Happy?” 

“You’re the gayest person I’ve ever met.” 

Edgar raises his eyebrows. “Pot, kettle.” Jimmy opens his mouth, and Edgar cuts him off. “You’re wearing makeup, I don’t want to hear it.” 

“You’re just jealous I’m hotter than you.” Jimmy juts his hip out and poses with his cigarette like a model, and Edgar’s mouth goes dry. 

“Just answer the question,” Edgar says, and really, he should get an oscar for how steady his voice is. Frustration is probably helping. “Come on, what’s something you’ve done that you’re proud of?” 

A strange expression crosses Jimmy’s face, a swirl of negative emotions that ripples across his face before Edgar has a chance to read them. He finds himself counting the seconds of silence the way he did during thunderstorms as a kid, staring out the window and waiting for the crash after the lightning. 

“I built my sound system from scratch,” Jimmy says finally. He’s not looking at Edgar anymore, instead staring at a point several feet over his head. Still, there’s pride in his voice. 

“You did?” Edgar asks. He doesn’t have to try to sound impressed. “How?” 

Jimmy shrugs and wraps one arm around his middle, keeping his cigarette close to his lips. “I just found the parts I needed, speakers and cd players and shit, and, I dunno, I just fixed them up and put it together. It wasn’t too hard.” 

“Jimmy,” Edgar says slowly, and Jimmy meets his eyes. His cheeks and ears are brilliant red, and he looks equal parts defensive and hopeful. “Do you know how impressive that is?” 

“It’s not a big fuckin’ deal,” Jimmy says. “Big waste of time, mostly. I don’t have cds for it, and it’s such a Frankenstein looking pile of junk that I can’t sell it.” 

“Come on!” Edgar exclaims, and Jimmy and some birds on the fire escape startle. “That’s impressive as fuck. Did you fix every piece yourself?” 

“Most of them,” Jimmy admits, then with more confidence, “the original cd player’s from a thrift store, but the speakers were busted, so I got new ones, and then I sort of just kept adding to it.” He hesitates. “But that’s not that weird. A lot of people would try to fix something before they pitch it, right?” 

“Not like that,” Edgar says. “What kind of music do you like?” 

Jimmy looks down at himself, then back at Edgar. “Seriously?” 

“Okay, fine, you’re a goth, punk piece of shit,” Edgar says. “ _Why_ do you like that music?” 

And finally, _finally_ he gets a positive reaction. A small but genuine smile creeps over Jimmy’s face, and he straightens up a bit against the wall. He even stamps out his cigarette as he tells Edgar about sneaking out to go to concerts in people’s basements and leaving mosh pits with bruises under his clothes the next day. His confidence and smile grow as he talks, and when he pushes himself off the wall to make a wide gesture about the true meaning of punk, Edgar realizes he likes Jimmy like this. 

He _really_ likes Jimmy like this. 

Edgar rolls the idea around in his mind, trying out different emphases. He _likes_ Jimmy. He likes _Jimmy._ _He_ likes _Jimmy._ It’s obvious and terrifying and comforting all at once. _He likes Jimmy._ He, Edgar Merediz Vargas, likes Jimmy Sinclair. _Likes_ likes him. Jesus, he sounds like one of his students. 

Apparently he’s doing a shit job hiding his early midlife crisis, because Jimmy pauses mid rant to give him a funny look. “You okay?” 

Edgar blinks. “Yeah.” _He likes Jimmy._ “Yeah, I’m okay.” 


	5. Outside Of Your Figurative Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A remarkably cheerful interlude, all things considered. Jimmy has a birthday, fireworks happen (unrelated to the birthday), Edgar has a moral crisis over a boner, and there's relatively little trauma for everyone involved. Things look like they're going right for a minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heed the tags. Title taken from She's The Prettiest Girl At The Party And She Can Prove It With A Solid Right Hook by frnkiero andthe cellabration, because spelling and short titles are for preps.

Edgar’s migraine lasts for fifty seven hours and thirty minutes. He diligently records each spike of pain in a little journal, even though he hasn’t been to the doctor’s about it since before his mom died and it’ll inevitably end up in a dusty corner of a bookshelf with all the others. He texts Devi when he wakes up with that horrible burning, stabbing pain radiating through his skull before staggering around his room to close the blackout curtains. He collapses back in bed, curls up, and presses the heels of his hands into his temples. Maybe if he presses hard enough, his skull will crack. It couldn’t hurt worse than this.

Tenna comes over within an hour and fusses for twenty minutes, making sure he’s got plenty of water on the bedside table and crackers to munch on, but don’t forget to eat real food too. Edgar doesn’t eat real food, but he does have to run to the bathroom to puke his guts up when he rolls over too quickly and his head just keeps going. He takes more excedrin than is strictly advised, and as much ibuprofen as he can manage before he begins to shake.

Johnny comes over around three the next day. Edgar doesn’t hear him come in, isn’t quite sure how he got it, but he’s too tired and pained to care. Sleep is surprisingly elusive when every breath feels like a screwdriver being shoved into your head. To his credit, Johnny doesn’t do any of that pity routine, just clucks his tongue at the untouched cans of soup Tenna had left on the counter and the empty sleeve of crackers before setting to work making the rest of the apartment as dark as possible before gently dragging Edgar out of his room to the kitchen and making soup. He chatters as he stirs, mostly about books and Todd, until he sets a steaming bowl in front of Edgar and stares at him over steepled fingers.

“How much medicine did you take yesterday?” Johnny asks.

Edgar, who hadn’t realized quite how hungry he was until food was in front of him, pauses mid slurp. “Uh…” He thinks back. It’s kind of fuzzy. “Four excedrin? And then like five ibuprofen?”

Apparently that was the wrong answer, because Johnny looks horrified. 

“I didn’t take it all at once?” Edgar backpedals. “And I have a bit of an immunity?”

“I will yell at you about this,” Johnny says while pulling out his phone, “but first I’m downgrading you to disaster gay in the group chat. Tess had you as functional gay, but you’re clearly an agent of chaos disguised as a responsible adult.” He hands his phone to Edgar. “There, you’re Disaster Gay 2.0.”

Edgar lost the thread of _that_ conversation before it even started. This is too much to think about right now. He slurps more soup.

“But seriously,” Johnny says. “Don’t take any more medicine today. You’re going to give yourself a rebound headache. Or you could die, and then I’d have to hide your body to avoid going to jail for murder. Or I could just fake some crop circles and leave your body in a field and blame it on the aliens. That’s a lot or work though, so try not to do that.”

“Please stop talking about my dead body before I’m dead,” Edgar says.

“Can I talk about your dead body after your dead?” Johnny looks entirely too hopeful.

“Fucking… fine,” Edgar says. “And don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

“Yes sir.” Johnny salutes, and Edgar can’t help smiling. “Do you mind if I watch tv if I unplug the visuals cable thing? Unless sound bugs you too. You should’ve told me to shut up ages ago. You would tell me to shut up if it bugged you, right? You might be too nice for that, I don’t know. You’re a very nice person. I should buy you earplugs.”

Edgar laughs and immediately regrets it when a wave of pain rolls over his skull and forces him to double over and press his head against to cool of the table. Johnny apologises profusely and presses a skeletal hand to Edgar’s cheek and hairline. He’s warmer than Edgar had expected someone so thin to be. 

“You don’t feel warm,” Johnny says. “Finish your soup and lie down. You mind if I watch tv?”

“Go ahead,” Edgar says. “Brightness should be down pretty low already.”

He sees Johnny give him a suspicious look but can’t bring himself to care. When he’s done, he stands up and ignores the rolling swirl of pain in his head and stomach like marbles in a funnel. He will not throw up.

Johnny sees him coming and slides off the couch to sit cross legged on the floor turning down the sounds of the _Forensic Files_ intro music. Edgar makes a vague gesture that he hopes conveys “I’m okay” and less lays on the couch and more flops on it. Face planting into a throw pillow hurts more than it probably should, but the burrow between the back of the couch and the edges of the pillow are blissfully dark. The narrator on the tv begins talking about some decades old crime that Edgar can’t bring himself to feel sorrow for in a voice he can’t really make out anyway. 

After a couple minutes, Johnny starts monologuing about the episode. “What a fucking idiot. If you’re going to behead and dehand one victim, you might as well do it to the other victim too. I mean, what’s the point? This idiot’s gonna get caught easily.” 

Edgar pays a little more attention to the episode, but mostly he just listens to Johnny’s chatter. When a person who Johnny said was clearly the killer was introduced, Johnny goes off on a very colorful rant involving strangulation with intestines and knives in places that knives have no business being.

“I’d be worried if I wasn’t in so much pain,” Edgar says without lifting his head from the pillows. He feels a hand patting his head.

“Don’t worry,” Johnny says, then refocuses on the tv. “Ooh, they arrested him already. I knew they’d get him easy. What a dipsit.”

Edgar makes a noncommittal noise and burrows deeper into the cushions. The exhaustion is finally catching up to him, and forming coherent thoughts takes more effort than he can be bothered to spare. He falls asleep to Johnny critiquing murders.

The next day Edgar goes into the shop. Not because he feels much better than yesterday, but because he’s going to go out of his mind with guilt if he keeps laying around doing nothing. Plus he feels well enough that he can walk without any more pain than if he was lying down, so really, what’s the point? Might as well be productive.

Everyone hovers for the first hour or so, but after enough reassurances and one rather waspish snap at Johnny that he’s _fine, really_ , he’s left pretty much alone. The only person who doesn’t seem overly worried is Jimmy, at least outwardly, but Edgar can feel his eyes on him for most of the day. 

That’s the thing about crushes, Edgar thinks, is that they make you so aware of the other person. As they take inventory of all the books (title, author, price), Edgar can’t _not_ listen to Jimmy as he talks with Tess about how much they both hate rom coms. It takes constant effort not to watch him gesture dramatically while complaining to Devi about how strict she is or to take more than cursory peeks at his mischievous glee at taunting Johnny. Jimmy catches Edgar’s eye between a gap in the shelves separating them and winks. Edgar blushes and looks away.

Unbidden, the mental image of Jimmy in the black lipstick from the other day, lips curled in a trouble maker smile and wreathed in smoke, springs into his mind. Would the lipstick stain skin like it had the cigarette?

Edgar mentally slaps himself. He shouldn’t be thinking about Jimmy like that. More than shouldn’t, he _cannot_ think about Jimmy like that. Jimmy can’t be more than nineteen. He’s practically a kid. Edgar’s head throbs with a vengeance.

***

**Edgar:** _I’m telling you this because you’re the only person I trust not to judge, laugh, or gossip to the others._

**Devi:** _Okay? Are you in trouble?_

**Edgar:** _Not in the usual sense. I have a crush on Jimmy, but he’s way too young for me, and I’m not really sure what to do._

**Devi:** _Well first of all the idea of having a crush on a trash hobgoblin like Jimmy in and of itself is impressively bad, so congratulations there._

**Edgar:** _Thank you_

**Devi:** _But in all seriousness, if you’re not comfortable with the idea of dating him, then don’t. It’s not hard._

**Edgar:** _What, just like that?_

**Devi:** _Pretty much. Trust me, I’m the queen of bad relationships. Summer’s going to end, and then once you don’t see him as often, you’ll get over it._

**Edgar:** _Is it bad that that makes me kind of sad?_

**Devi:** _I don’t think so. Everything about relationships sucks._

**Edgar:** _Remind me why I came to you for advice?_

**Devi:** _I have no fucking idea. Bad call on your part._

**Devi:** _If you want I can divy up tasks so you two aren’t near each other as much._

**Edgar:** _I think that’s for the best, yeah. Thank you, I think._

**Devi:** _You’re welcome, I guess._

***

Jimmy's pretty sure the first time his mom pushed him down the stairs was an accident. Not out of any defense of her character or anything, he'd just been standing on the landing playing with, jesus, plastic dinosaurs? He doesn't remember. But he'd been five and small, and she'd been running to the bathroom with blood pouring out her nose after a bad fight with Dad, and, well. He'd taken a tumble, hadn't he?

His mom wanted to be prettier than she was. She had too many freckles, hair and eyes too dull, but it never stopped her from trying. Dad said, in those moments that came fewer and further between as he’d gotten older, she’d wanted to be famous, an actress. She was good at it, all smiles and affection and fifties motherly goodness until they got home from whatever public function. She blamed Dad for ruining her dreams, but she never hit him, just flung cruel words around like knives while taking all the violence out on Jimmy until they were both bleeding on the floor.

When Jimmy had been very young, he’d imagined him and Dad as allies in a fight with the monster under the bed they lived with. He’d been wrong, of course. Because Dad had found out that if he insulted Jimmy, called him stupid, useless, lazy, biggest embarrassment in his life, that Mom didn’t yell at him so much. Dad never hit him, he was always too much of a coward, but he did everything he could to make sure Jimmy got hit. Jimmy was alone.

It wasn’t until Jimmy was six that the basement started becoming a punishment. He’d always been scared of it, with it’s low ceilings and concrete walls and hoards of off season decorations and broken furniture making monstrous shapes in the gloom of the single bare lightbulb. He doesn’t remember what he’d done to get thrown down the first time, but he knows the second he’d started screaming, he handed her her most powerful weapon. She cut the power to the basement whenever she got done throwing him down the steps, and he would scream and pound on the door until his hands were full of splinters and bleeding and then he would scream so hard he threw up.

She hadn’t liked that part much. It was the only time she actually sent him to the hospital.

So Jimmy learned to survive. He learned not to vomit during spells in the basement. He learned how to breathe through a broken rib. He learned how to steal food and make it look like he was never there. He learned how to move like a ghost in his own home. He learned how to turn his fear into anger into armor. He learned how to read a room before his body moved across the threshold. He learned how to tend to his hate, feeding it every bruise, every sprain, every hour spent in that godforsaken basement.

And then he met Johnny.

***

**Jimmy:** _TESS I’M HAVING A CRISIS I NEED YOUR HELP RIGHT NOW IMMEDIATELY_

**Useless Lesbian:** _oh my god are you okay? where are you? i’m getting my keys now_

**Jimmy:** _i’m out of clean pants_

**Useless Lesbian:** _i’m still coming over to kick your ass you gave me a heart attack_

**Jimmy:** _i’m a werewolf what could have possible hurt me?_

**Useless Lesbian:** _HUNTERS ARE A THING JAMES_

**Jimmy:** _devi said we have a no violence pact or what the fuck ever. besides if a hunter got me, i probably wouldn’t be so composed in my text_

**Jimmy:** _and please don’t call me james_

**Useless Lesbian:** _yeah, sure to all of those. now why are you texting me about pants?_

**Jimmy:** _you own pants. plus there’s not a universe where johnny would loan me a pair of his_

**Useless Lesbian:** _there’s not a world where you would fit into his pants. fucking short stack_

**Jimmy:** _LMAO_

**Jimmy:** _but seriously i’m out of pants. like nothing even passes the sniff test_

**Useless Lesbian:** _how do you run that out of pants_

**Jimmy:** _pay day’s in like two days and i thought i could make it but i can’t_

**Useless Lesbian:** _i mean i’m low on clothes too for the same reason. i’m down to skirts_

**Jimmy:** _that works_

**Useless Lesbian:** _are you serious?_

**Jimmy:** _i think you’re underestimating how desperate i am_

**Useless Lesbian:** _if you’re sure. swing by whenever i guess_

**Jimmy:** _tess_

**Useless Lesbian:** _what_

**Jimmy:** _i. don’t. have. PANTS._

**Useless Lesbian:** _oh yeah. i’ll be over in a few then._

**Jimmy:** _shit like this is why your contact name is useless lesbian_

**Useless Lesbian:** _fucking rude_

***

When Tess and Jimmy get to the shop, everyone’s gathered around the desk in the office talking about some pile of papers, except Johnny, who’s sulking in the corner. Edgar’s face does this weird thing when he sees Jimmy, going so pokerfaced that he looks paralyzed, except for his jaw working furiously under the surface. His eyes keep darting around the room before landing back on Jimmy for a fraction of a second and taking off again. Jimmy can hear his heartbeat pick up from across the room, and it’s such a fucking power trip. 

“‘Sup, losers,” Jimmy says and makes his way over. Plans for the coffee bar are scattered across the desk, fully colored with the dimensions written in Devi’s neat handwriting. 

“Good morning to you too, fucko,” Tenna says. She gives him a once over, apparently approving until she gets around his head. “Okay, no. You want to wear eyeshadow you’ve got to do it right.”

“What’s wrong with my eyeshadow?” Jimmy asks, crossing his arms. He’d been in a bit of a rush when he put it on, but he didn’t think it looked that bad.

“You can’t just slap on one shade over your whole eyelid and call it good,” Tenna said. “Plus it’s already gathering in your crease, and that’s never a good look.” She turns to Tess. “I blame you for letting him leave the house like this.”

“Rude,” Tess says, looking unimpressed with the whole thing.

“Is this really the priority right now?” Devi asks.

Tenna makes a dramatic gesture that probably would’ve hit Jimmy in the face if he hadn’t flinched back. “He’s been doing this for months and I haven’t said anything. Please just let me fix it real quick?”

Now wait just a goddamn minute.

“Fix it?” Jimmy asks.

Tenna ignores him and gives Devi a pleading look. Jimmy looks at Tess, who shrugs, then at Edgar, who seems far more interested in the coffee bar plans than he had a minute ago. 

“I just want to fix his eyeshadow,” Tenna pleads, and Jimmy can see the exact moment Devi breaks.

“Fine,” she sighs. “Just don’t take too long. I want to buy some wood today if we can.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tenna grabs Jimmy and Tess by the arm and starts dragging them out the back door. “It won’t take long.”

“I didn’t agree to this!” Jimmy protests. Johnny laughs, and Jimmy flips him off with his free hand. Johnny flips him off right back.

“Why am I here?” Tess asks. Tenna leads them up the rickety staircase in the back to Devi’s apartment. Jimmy’s been there once, back when he got turned, and he’s not super eager to go back in. It’s not anything against Devi or her place, but it’s hard to kick the association of being scared and hungry.

“Because you’re better at winging eyeliner than me.” Tenna makes a triumphant noise and pulls a key out of her pocket. The inside is pretty much how Jimmy remembers. Main living space dominated by a squashy couch and a paint stained table, now featuring colored pencils and plain printer paper instead of canvas and acrylics. Tenna pushes a small mountain of crumpled papers aside and gestures to Jimmy to sit.

“I’m gonna grab some makeup,” she says and gives him a critical stare. “Between the two of us there must be something that’s the right color for you. We won’t be able to do foundation though, you’re too pink.”

“I thought you said you were just doing eyeshadow?” Jimmy asks. He’s sort of accepted his fate at this point, but he still wants to know what he’s getting himself into.

“I lied,” Tenna says with a shrug. “If you’re going to wear makeup, I want to make sure you know how to do all of it right.”

Jimmy blinks at her. He’s… touched? Is this what it’s like to have sisters?

“I’d say no to foundation even if you had some that fit him,” Tess chimes in. “You’d cover up all those cute freckles.” She reaches across the corner of the table and tries to pinch his cheek. He smacks her hand away. 

“The fuck is foundation?” he grumbles. Tenna makes a hopeless noise and walks off to get makeup. He looks at Tess. She laughs at him.

“You put it all over your face and it hides pimples and stuff,” Tess explains. “It makes your face look smooth. You don’t have to wear it but some people like to because it makes them feel confident. Or you’re trying to get some dick, whatever.”

“You’re really bad at explaining this,” Jimmy notes. Tess is saved from answering by Tenna returning with an armload of tubes and plastic squares. She dumps it all unceremoniously on the table, then tosses him a bright green package.

“These are makeup remover wipes,” she says. “Bathroom’s on the left.”

When Jimmy returns, barefaced, Tenna wastes no time getting started. She explains everything as she goes, but Jimmy doesn’t really pay attention for most of it. He doesn’t care about contouring (whatever the fuck that means) or doing his eyebrows. It feels nice if nothing else. Tenna forces him to pay attention when she does his eyeshadow by making him repeat steps back to her, and things go pretty smoothly until she tries to shove a spiky torture device called mascara in his eyeball. 

“What’s taking so long?” Devi demands. Jimmy turns to look over his shoulder and nearly gets poked in the eye with the mascara brush.

“Jimmy won’t let me do his mascara!” Tenna says.

“Tenna did all my makeup!” Jimmy says at the same time. “I don’t even know what a mascara is!”

Devi looks like she wants to be annoyed but can’t quite find it in her. “It goes on your eyelashes. You don’t need much. Ten, let him do the eyeliner and mascara himself, he’s had enough practice.”

“I thought I was doing his eyeliner,” Tess says.

“You are not winging my eyeliner.”

“At least let me use liquid on the top.” She plucks a little bottle off the table. Jimmy eyes it suspiciously. “This stuff won’t go into the crease like a pencil.”

“Fine.” Jimmy knows how to pick his battles every once in a while. The eyeliner is cold, but when he gets to the bathroom to do the rest and stare down the mascara, he has to admit it looks better than his glorified crayon at home. 

There’s not much left to do when he gets back. Devi stares him down until he puts on lipstick that is decidedly not black while Tenna lectures him about blotting and not being an absolute heathen. They cover him in something called finishing powder that makes him sneeze three times in a row and hope, eyes watering, that they really are finished. As the dust clears, Tenna steps back and regards Jimmy in a way that makes him think of cartoons where someone finishes working on something and the camera shows a complete disaster in the next shot. It’s not a very reassuring feeling.

“All done!” Tenna says brightly.

“Thank fuck,” Jimmy mutters.

“Alright,” Devi says. “Now can we please get to work?” She doesn’t give them much of a choice and ushers them all back downstairs.

***

**Devi:** _i’m sorry_

**Edgar:** _what?_

**Edgar:** _why are you sorry_

**Edgar:** _Devi?_

***

The universe is clearly conspiring against Edgar. There’s no other way to explain that _fucking_ skirt. It looked classy on Tess, but on Jimmy it swings dangerously around mid thigh and shows off miles of pale skin and boots practically painted on his calves. And now the makeup, jesus christ in heaven. Devi gives him an apologetic look over Jimmy’s shoulder. 

Fucking _Jimmy._ He’s gone from looking like a bit of a hot mess to looking like he should be turning tricks on dark street corners. Edgar doesn’t know a lot about makeup, but the girls have done something with his eyes that make them look deep set and shadowed and make his irises all but glow as he saunters over to the desk to perch next to Edgar. He smiles with blood red lips and looks up from under unreasonably long eyelashes. It takes more self control than Edgar knew he had to keep himself from going stiff right in front of everyone.

“How do I look?” Jimmy asks, like he doesn’t know.

“Good,” Edgar says, and his voice is only a little strangled. Across the room, Johnny makes a disgusted noise.

“I thought we were building a coffee bar,” he says. He sounds even less enthusiastic than he had before, and Edgar focuses on him instead of thinking about how that lipstick would look kiss ruined and smeared on his throat.

“Does anyone here actually know how to build a coffee bar?” Tenna asks. “Or any piece of furniture?”

Everyone looks at Edgar. Right. This is why Tenna invited him in the first place.

“Is this a bad time to say that I’ve been bullshitting as hard as I can since we’ve gotten here?” 

Johnny groans and drags his hand down his face, which, fair. Tess and Devi look disappointed but not surprised, and Tenna looks amused by the whole thing. Edgar doesn’t know how Jimmy reacts because he’s exercising self control.

“Well you’ve been bullshitting very well,” Tenna says.

“You did ask me for help based on the fact that I watch HGTV,” Edgar points out. “That’s not exactly a resume.”

Tess sighs. “Yeah.” She looks at Devi. “Could we hire a contractor?”

“I don’t know,” Devi sighs. “It’d be expensive if we did it ourselves and fucked up, but I think we could do it.”

“What, through the power of friendship?” Jimmy looks up from picking at his nail polish to give the rest of them an unimpressed look.

“We could drop the idea,” Johnny says.

“And what, have the last month of work be for nothing?” Tess snaps. Johnny looks less enthused.

“Jimmy,” Edgar says, “you’re pretty good at building stuff.”

Jimmy stops fiddling with the edges of that stupid fishnet shirt and looks surprised to find everyone looking at him. He shifts from foot to foot and scowls at Edgar. “I fixed one radio one time.”

“You did a little more than that,” Edgar says.

Tess perks up. “Oh that thing with the speakers? Yeah, that was cool.”

“Thanks,” Jimmy says drily. “Doesn’t mean I can build a fucking whatever that is.” He jerks his chin at Devi’s drawings. “It’s been a minute since I took woodshop.”

“Less of a minute than the rest of us,” Tenna says with a shrug. “Plus building anything puts you a step above me at least.”

Jimmy glares harder. “So what? Mr. Home And Gardening here and I are going to magically know how to put together a piece of furniture? I don’t even have a proper bed frame!”

Wait, _what?_

“Jimmy,” Edgar starts, but Jimmy cuts him off with a “one moment” gesture.

“Not now, Edgar.”

“I know how to build furniture,” Johnny says and makes a face like he regrets saying anything.

They all stare at him. Devi looks ready for murder. “You’ve waited until _now_ to tell us this?”

Johnny has the good sense to look even vaguely uncomfortable under that glare. “I didn’t want to do this project.”

“Back up a sec,” Tess says, making a time out gesture. “How do you know how to make furniture, exactly?”

Johnny looks less than thrilled to have all this attention on him. Edgar doesn’t think he’s ever spoken this much at one of these meetings before. Usually Nny just skulks in the corner and does what Devi tells him, sometimes quoting what Edgar thinks is _Faust_ to himself in German if he’s in a particularly bad mood.

“Grocery store cashier is just a day job,” Johnny grumbles. “Evening job if you want to be technical. I do custom cabinetry for the rich fucks uptown sometimes. I have a website.” He pulls out his phone. “Orders are spotty, ergo, cashier. Ooh, and I draw, but that doesn’t sell well. People don’t like gore for some reason.”

He holds his phone out to Devi. She takes it and scrolls around for a bit, then looks at Johnny, down at the phone, and back at him.

“To be clear,” she says. “I’m still going to kick your ass. But do you think you can do a coffee bar?”

Johnny sighs. “Probably. Most shit I do the counter’s already there, but it shouldn’t be too hard.” He gets a thoughtful look on his face then shrugs. “Yeah, fuck it. Let me see the drawings.”

He shoves between Edgar and Jimmy, catching Jimmy in the ribs with one pointed elbow. Jimmy hops off the desk and glares at Johnny, who’s for once completely absorbed in Devi’s plans and moving his lips in silent words as he traces the dimensions. Edgar catches Jimmy’s eye, and Jimmy tilts his head at the door in an invitation.

He should say no, he really should. They have work to do.

Edgar nods once. Barely.

“I’m grabbing a smoke,” Jimmy says. He gives Edgar a lazy smile. “You want one, babe?”

Said the spider to the fly. He could still say no. Should still say no.

“Don’t call me that,” Edgar says and follows Jimmy out. Devi gives him a look that manages to be suspicious, disapproving, and sympathetic all at once as he passes.

“Don’t go far,” she says. “When Johnny’s done I want you two to go to get some wood and whatever else we need.”

God fucking bless Devi. 

“We won’t,” he says, and then Jimmy’s hand sears as it wraps around his wrists and pulls him out the door. Edgar’s not sure if he should be sorry or not when Jimmy lets go almost immediately. Well, scratch that. He _knows_ he shouldn’t care, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling cold.

“Are you okay?” Edgar asks. Jimmy snorts and lights a cigarette. He’s got a lighter today. It feels significant, somehow. A firmer grasp on sanity, though whose, Edgar isn’t sure. 

“It was getting a bit crowded in there,” he says. He sucks in smoke and _moans_ around the cigarette like it’s the best thing to ever happen to him, holding Edgar’s gaze the entire time. Fucking Christ, this was a terrible idea. Easily in the top ten. Far worse than doing a flip to impress a crush, though at least he hasn’t broken anything. Yet.

Smoke streams out of Jimmy’s shark tooth grin. He saunters closer to Edgar, piercings glittering in the midday sun, tiny hoops in the shell of his ear begging to be touched, and stops close enough that it would be so easy to follow through on the impulse. His cheekbones look sharper than broken glass, and Edgar wants to kiss them just to see if his mouth comes back bloody. Brick grit bites his back.

“Why does Johnny hate you?” Edgar doesn’t remember making the decision to ask the question, but there it is, hanging in the narrow space between them. Jimmy’s smirk falls off to be replaced by a mask of cold rage trying to play at indifference.

“Like he hasn’t told you,” Jimmy snaps. 

“I don’t-”

“Come on!” Jimmy cuts him off. “All those times you hang out and he hasn’t told you how I’m a blight on this earth or whatever pretentious, hypocritical ass bullshit he spouts?"

There’s something raw and broken in Jimmy’s voice that makes Edgar’s heart twist. His hands twitch with the impulse to touch his shoulders, but he’s not sure how Jimmy would react, so instead he just watches as he takes another deep drag of his cigarette.

“Actually,” Edgar says slowly, like he’s talking to a cornered animal, “I usually tune him out when he gets like that.”

Surprise flits over Jimmy’s face. “Why?”

Edgar shrugs awkwardly. He can feel the importance of his answer hanging in the air and tingling on his tongue, but he doesn’t know what the answer is.

“Johnny has a tendency to assume that the way he perceives the world is the only reality,” he says after a tense pause. “Whatever his problem is with you, it doesn’t let him think objectively about you. Besides, I don’t see all the negative stuff he says about you. You’re a good person. You’re not a particularly nice person, but you’re a good person.”

Jimmy stares for a long time, long enough to finish his cigarette and crush the butt under his boot. Something burns in his eyes, blue as the heart of a stove top flame. He bites his lip with a chipped canine. When he stops, there’s a startling shade of red on the white of his teeth.

“What,” Jimmy stops, scowls at the ground. “Why did you bring up the radio in there?”

Edgar blinks. That wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. “Because I was trying to help. You’re talented, and I thought you could help. I’m sorry if it was out of line.”

Jimmy shakes his head. He’s getting more agitated, picking at his nailpolish and the sleeves of his shirt. “It wasn’t. That’s not the- _why_ did you tell them?”

“Because you deserve to have your talents recognized?” Edgar says. He doesn’t know if that’s the right answer to Jimmy’s question. He doesn’t know if that’s even what he’d been thinking. He’d just said it. Jimmy looks more upset.

“Buy _why?_ ” He makes an aborted move like he was going to grab Edgar but thought better of it at the last second. “Why are you so fucking nice to me?”

“Because you deserve to be happy!” Edgar throws his hands up. “Christ, I don’t know! Maybe I’m just a nice person and you’re not special! What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” Jimmy says, but some of the tension has gone out of his shoulders. He lights a second cigarette. “Thank you.”

“Thank-”

“No.” Jimmy smirks. “I didn’t mean you say thank you. I’m thanking you. Fuck, you really are all kinds of adorable.”

“I- what exactly are you thanking me for?” Edgar’s pretty sure he has whiplash, what the _hell_.

Jimmy shrugs, back to that loose, almost impudent grace. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

Edgar’s saved from having to come up with a response to whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean by Johnny tossing open the door. Edgar’s never been so happy to see his scarecrow frame.

“You ready to go?” Johnny asks, eyes darting back and forth between the two of them.

“Yeah,” Edgar says. He starts to follow Johnny, then turns back to Jimmy. “See you later.”

Jimmy gives a sort of salute with his cigarette, and Edgar lets Johnny lead him back inside.

***

If there’s something pathetic about sitting on the floor of your apartment in your boxers and drinking wine straight out of the bottle, Edgar’s ignoring it. He leans against the couch and stares at the wine bottle. He swears there was more wine in it last time he took a swig. Whatever. He takes a long drink. 

The image of Jimmy in that fucking skirt is still seared into his head. Every time he thinks it’s gone, he closes his eyes and sees miles of pale skin and dark red lips curled suggestively around a cigarette. Pretty storm cloud eyes boring into him behind a veil of smoke. Molten heat curls in his stomach.

Edgar brushes his fingers over the front of his boxers, dragging the fabric over the sensitive head of his cock. This is such a bad idea. He tries to imagine the man he’d been eyeing at the bar last weekend. Tall, broad, dark, wearing a sports jersey. As far from Jimmy as Edgar could find. Nothing had come of it, of course, but Edgar imagines if something had.

He imagines hands holding his hips down and a mouth pressing at his cock through his jeans. The stranger doesn’t leave lipstick stains on the fabric. Edgar pretends he likes it this way. He squeezes his cock. The stranger frees Edgar’s cock from his pants. Edgar drunkenly shifts and tries not to fall over as he does the same in the real world. Fantasy him is much more graceful.

Jimmy’s face springs into his mind, devilish grin and kohl rimmed eyes. He replaces the stranger in Edgar’s mind before he can help himself. Fantasy Jimmy is wearing the black lipstick and licks the tip of Edgar’s cock with a pretty pink tongue. Razor sharp bones threaten his fingers under flushed cheeks.

Edgar swipes his thumb over the head of his cock, lets his head roll back and moans. This is a bad idea. He pushes Jimmy out of his head, pulls the stranger back. Dark eyes, not blue ones, looking up as he sucks on Edgar’s dick like a lollipop. He imagines running his hands over a buzzed scalp, not carding his fingers through long, gel clumped hair. He doesn’t.

His hips jerk up into his fist. The friction is dry, but getting up and getting the lotion out of his dresser is too much effort. He swipes his fingers across the beading precome and sighs, voice breaking just so on a moan.

Fuck, he can’t help it, Jimmy dominates his fantasy, sucking down on Edgar’s cock in the fuzzy liminal space of dreams as Edgar pumps his fist, and he’s in too deep to stop now. His body thrills with the phantom pleasure of black lipstick staining his dick. Would Jimmy gag if he tried to swallow him all the way down? Edgar doesn’t know much about Jimmy’s sex life, but he makes enough lewd jokes that Edgar can imagine him gagging once or twice before he can fuck his throat. Maybe Jimmy tears up and ruins that perfect eyeliner and moans when Edgar wipes at the streaks. 

Edgar’s dick is weeping, making the slide of his hand easier, and god he wishes it was the heat of Jimmy’s mouth instead. He’s always so warm, Edgar bets he’d be deliciously hot around his cock. Fuck, he’d be hot in every sense riding Edgar, writhing in his lap and mouthing at the side of his neck. He seems like the kind of person who’d be a biter, trying to leave marks on Edgar’s dark skin. It’d be so easy to bruise Jimmy’s skin, to leave galaxies behind the constellations of freckles. 

He remembers that obscene noise Jimmy made around the cigarette and imagines Jimmy making it because of him. God, he wants to hear all the noises Jimmy would make being fucked into a mattress, gagging and begging for Edgar to _give it to me, please please, more, I need it, fuck fuck_ fuck

Edgar comes, hips twitching into his fist, working himself until the sensation is too much and he has to let go. He pants and rests his head against the couch, reveling in the relative coolness. When he opens his eyes, he groans and berates himself for not moving to bed. Come is a bitch to get off the floor.

He kicks his boxers the rest of the way off and uses them to wipe up the worst of the mess. He’ll get the rest tomorrow, he lies to himself as he tosses the ruined underwear into the hamper. It’s not until he gets in the shower that he starts to feel guilty.

Jimmy’s nineteen. Edgar got off thinking about a _teenager_. He scrubs harder at his skin, trying to push the slimy feeling out of him. He’s disgusting. Jimmy’s closer in age to his students than him. He’s practically a kid still. Edgar thinks he might be sick.

In the end, he doesn’t throw up, but he can’t scrub off the dirty feeling. He goes to bed naked, too drunk to manage the coordination it takes to put on pajama pants, and curls himself into a ball and tries not to think. When he does fall asleep, it’s not restful.

***

**Jimmy:** _i have a crush on edgar_

**Useless Lesbian:** _duh?_

**Jimmy:** _no you don’t understand, i really have a crush on him. like before i just wanted to get on that dick, and i still want that but i also want to listen to him talk about things he likes and hold his stupid hand and kiss his stupid face and go on stupid dates_

**Useless Lesbian:** _okay first of all, that’s more information than i really needed, and second, if I help you with this, you need to help me with tenna and devi_

**Jimmy: **_you’re cruel_****

********

********

**Jimmy:** _fine i’ll help_

**Useless Lesbian:** _so it’s still basically the same shit i told you last time. tenna and devi keep inviting me over to their place and to hang out with them in general, and i feel like i’m third wheeling but i don’t want to stop spending time with them? AND they sometimes take turns paying for food or tickets or whatever and insisting that it’s fine when i try to pay them back?_

**Jimmy:** _TESS. GOD. YOUR SO DUMB_

**Useless Lesbian:** _rude_

**Jimmy:** _THEY’RE TAKING YOU ON DATES, YOU USELESS LESBIAN JFC_

**Jimmy:** _THEY WANNA BONE DOWN_

> **Useless Lesbian:** _well that’s what i thought but i wasn’t sure and i panicked_

**Jimmy:** _i weep for lesbians everywhere_

**Useless Lesbian:** _guess i won’t help you with your crush then_

**Jimmy:** _wait no i’m sorry i called you useless_

**Useless Lesbian:** _damn right you are. now what’s the specific issue here_

**Jimmy:** _not sure why i’m asking your useless butch ass for advice but what do i do if i have a crush on a hot unattainable guy?_

**Useless Lesbian:** _tell him how you feel?_

**Jimmy:** _i can’t even begin to express how funny that is coming from you_

**Jimmy:** _also hell fucking no are you insane_

**Useless Lesbian:** _okay i deserved that. but seriously, if you don’t want to tell him outright, then test the waters a bit. the fourth is in a couple days, why don’t you do something with him then?_

**Jimmy:** _first of all, i don’t have any money to do anything with him, second, i think i sort of scared him off yesterday? he made constipation face a lot_

**Useless Lesbian:** _jfc fine i’ll fix this. big sister to the rescue_

**Jimmy:** _you’re not my sister? and i’m not sure i trust you to fix my romantic problems_

**Useless Lesbian:** _i’m sort of your sister. now hop on that group chat and watch me work_

***

**Functional Lesbian:** _so what are everyone’s plans for the fourth?_

**Disaster Gay:** _get laid_

**Disaster Lesbian:** _gross_

**Disaster Gay:** _tess asked_

**Functional Lesbian:** _that’s not what i meant and you know it_

**Functional Bi:** _Tenna and I don’t have any plans. Why?_

**Functional Lesbian:** _trying to figure out if we can have a party_

**Disaster Gay 2.0:** _I was planning on getting drunk but this sounds more fun._

**Disaster Gay:** _if there’s no drinks at this thing then it won’t be much of a party_

**Functional Lesbian:** _okay, i’m changing edgar back to functional gay or this is gonna get way to confusing_

**Disaster Gay 2.0 has changed his name to Functional Gay.**

**Functional Gay:** _Why do I have to use this handle?_

**Disaster Lesbian:** _to fit the theme duh_

**Disaster Ace:** _i was planning on taking Squee to see some fireworks. His parents leave him alone most holidays._

**Functional Lesbian:** _oh there you are johnny. and that’s perfect bc the roof of my apartment has a pretty good long distance view of all the venues, plus people are always shooting off illegal ones_

**Disaster Lesbian:** _ooh i have a bluetooth speaker!_

**Functional Gay:** _I can bring beer?_

**Functional Lesbian:** _edgar you’re a saint. devi and tenna, i can pick you two up around nine?_

**Functional Bi:** _You don’t have to, we can walk._

**Disaster Lesbian:** _we will?_

**Functional Lesbian:** _it’s no trouble!_

**Functional Bi:** _I guess that’s fine then. So are we meeting at nine?_

**Disaster Gay:** _works for me_

**Functional Gay:** _Didn’t you have other plans?_

**Disaster Gay:** _nah. why, you jealous?_

**Disaster Ace:** _nine works for me_

**Functional Gay:** _Jimmy, I’m ignoring you._

**Functional Lesbian:** _then it’s settled! my place at nine. if you want anything other than beer, bring it yourself_

**Disaster Ace:** _i can bring Squee right?_

**Functional Lesbian:** _of course!_

**Disaster Ace:** _good_

**Disaster Lesbian:** _see you all then!!! :D_

***

**Jimmy:** _did you just arrange a date for yourself with two girls, a chance for me to talk to Edgar, and fulfil Johnny’s parenthood fantasies in one go?_

**Useless Lesbian:** _you bet your ass i did. now change my name to something other than useless lesbian_

***

Edgar peers down the alley. Tess had said something about coming up the fire escape, but he’s got two twelve packs of beer and they’re _heavy._ He sets them down and leans in the mouth of the alley just to roll his shoulders and breathe a minute. The air is hot, hotter than normal, even in July, and getting heavier every day. There might be a storm brewing just behind the horizon line.

Footsteps echo down from the roof, and Edgar turns to see someone clambering down the fire escape.

“Edgar!” Jimmy calls. “Get over here! You’re late!”

He’s in a good mood tonight, there’s a bounce in his step. Edgar picks up the beer and hauls them deeper into the shadows. Jimmy smiles like he’s got a secret as the fire escape ladder drops him on the pavement, weightless and graceful as a trapeze artist on the rungs. The momentum carries him further than Edgar thought it would, and Jimmy’s feet keep moving when they touch the ground until they’re closer than they’ve ever been. Edgar half expects Jimmy to grab him and whisk him away like Cirque du Soleil. 

Instead, Jimmy spots the beer and beams. “You really came through!”

“There’s a lot of us,” Edgar says. Jimmy hasn’t moved away.

“Devi’s gonna be thrilled,” he says. “She brought apple juice and what I’m pretty sure is rubbing alcohol that only smells like a jolly rancher- here give me that.” He takes one of the twelve packs without waiting for Edgar’s reply and starts climbing the fire escape like it isn’t there.

“You’re awfully cheerful,” Edgar observes. Jimmy pauses in his ascent. Music is audible from the roof now, something almost bubble pop but with a hard undercurrent.

“Guess I’m just happy.” Jimmy smiles through the criss crossing metal and starts moving again.

It’s a little strange, seeing everyone outside the bookshop. They’re all more relaxed, for one. The girls are sitting on a cartoon worthy checkered blanket, Devi in the middle with the other two leaning on either side. Tenna gestures enthusiastically with a shot glass at Johnny, who’s actually smiling. Todd perks up from whatever he’s crouched over and waves so hard he nearly falls over. Edgar smiles.

Most of the night passes in a blur of music and laughter. The official shows are too far away to be more than coin sized splashes of color in a background dominated by Tenna trying to pull Devi into dancing with her and Tess. Jimmy moves like a tide around Edgar, ebbing away to dance or drink before flowing back in to try to persuade Edgar to dance with him. He doesn’t touch, and Edgar never agrees to go with him, and Jimmy’s smile barely falters as he rushes back out to get more shots and lose another dance off to Tenna.

They calm down more when the local fireworks start going off, illegal things being lit off in the streets and off rooftops. Someone a couple blocks away has gotten their hands on professional grade fireworks that make Edgar’s teeth rattle in his skull as they go off like percussion cannons. Todd shrieks and giggles, running to hide behind Johnny. Edgar laughs and sits on the edge by the fire escape, letting his feet dangle down in empty air. Tess lays down in the center of the roof and pulls Tenna and Devi down with her. Jimmy sways over with a can of beer and only just sits without falling.

“You’re not being very social,” he slurs.

“I just like watching.” Edgar shrugs. “It makes me happy. Besides, I’ve talked to everyone.”

“You didn’t dance,” Jimmy pouts.

“I can’t dance,” Edgar says.

“I don’t believe you.” Jimmy’s features flash ghost-like under a purple firework before returning to normal. Edgar doesn’t bother arguing, just sips the can of beer he’s been nursing for the past hour and watches the fireworks going off around them. Jimmy kicks his legs like a little kid.

“When I was a kid,” Jimmy says after a very long pause, “I thought the fireworks were for my birthday.”

Edgar chuckles. “That’s cute.”

Jimmy shrugs and takes a swig of beer that Edgar thinks he should feel guilty for giving him. “I guess. My mom just smacked me upside the head and told me not to be stupid.”

“I’m sorry,” Edgar says. Jimmy stares at him with a million emotions in his eyes and the whole city’s fireworks going off around them, and if the others weren’t a few feet away, if Edgar was braver or drunker, if Jimmy was older…

“You don’t talk about yourself much,” Jimmy observes.

“Not much to tell,” Edgar says.

“How come you don’t have plans tonight?” Jimmy asks, as serious as he’s been tonight. “Nice goody goody like you, why aren’t you with your family? Isn’t that what normal people do?”

Edgar sighs. He’d rather be having any conversation but this one. “No family to celebrate with.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Jimmy says, and takes a long swallow from his beer. He refocuses his gaze on Edgar, and he wonders how drunk Jimmy is. For someone who’s been keeping pace with Devi, he’s not nearly as out of it as Edgar would’ve thought. “Your mom a bitch too, then?”

Two fireworks go off in quick succession, bathing them in flashes of bloody light. Danger, danger.

“She’s dead,” Edgar says stiffly. Jimmy’s face falls.

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

“It was a long time ago,” Edgar says. He takes a drink of beer and watches trails of gold sparks fall over the buildings. _Burning this city to the fucking ground would be the best thing I’d ever do with my life._

“She committed suicide the day after I turned eighteen,” Edgar says. Jimmy looks surprised but doesn’t say anything. Edgar keeps his eyes on the fireworks. “My dad died when I was five. He drank himself to death. Mom said America never agreed with him. I don’t think it agreed with her either, she talked about Guatemala and her family a lot, but she never let it show. She didn’t want me to feel guilty or something. She was tougher than I am.” He sighs so deeply he thinks he might be able to push the sudden surge of grief back out of him. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I’m not even drunk.”

“It’s okay,” Jimmy says. Edgar can feel his eyes boring into him.

There’s another long pause. The explosions are coming less frequently. Behind them, Tenna’s music switches to something calm and nostalgic, like it’s sensed Edgar’s change in mood.

“Do you miss her?” Jimmy asks. There’s something Edgar can’t identify in the undercurrents of his voice, but he thinks it might be wistful, wanting.

“All the time,” Edgar says. “But not constantly. It comes and goes. Some days I’m okay, but other days it really hurts, you know?”

“Not really.” Jimmy hesitates. “But I kind of wish I did. Like I wish I’d cared enough about the people who left me that it hurt when they went, you know?”

“Not really.”

The only fireworks left are miles off, too far away to change the colors around them, and eighties synth pop plays in the background. The whole universe has condensed into this one rooftop ledge and Edgar’s awareness of Jimmy’s presence in his periphery, a shadow within shadows with orange sodium lights reflecting off his boots like hellfire. Warm fingers brush over his, hesitant, before taking Edgar’s hand like it’s something precious.

Edgar pulls his hand into his lap and pretends he doesn’t think the summer air is cold. He meets Jimmy’s eyes. Only the very edges of his eyes are still ringed with blue, dark and deep and sad.

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy says.

“Me too.”

***

It’s dark when Jimmy gets to the bookshop, which either means everyone went shopping without him (more likely) or a demon is hiding down one of the isles waiting to eat him like it had the others (less likely, but at this point it wouldn’t surprise him.) He checks his phone just to be safe and, nope, no texts. Maybe they forgot about him? That’d be… well more disappointing than surprising if he’s being honest with himself. But Tess wouldn’t forget about him, would she? Even Edgar’s too considerate to just forget. He eyes the shadows between the shelves. Well, fighting a demon to avenge his friends is one of the cooler ways he could go.

Luckily, Jimmy doesn’t get eaten by an eldritch monster before getting to the office. Unluckily, he makes a terrified noise, something like “huwaughah,” that he will absolutely deny making later when everyone shouts “Surprise!” as the lights come on. 

“Happy birthday!” Tenna shouts, which is a bit excessive since she’s right next to him, manning the light switch. 

“Fucking shit!” Jimmy presses his hand to his chest and ignores that everyone but Edgar can absolutely hear the heart attack he’s fighting off. “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s your birthday party, dumbass,” Tess says. The party hats, cake, and presents really should’ve tipped Jimmy off to this, but listen, it’s been a hot minute since he had a birthday party.

“Do I have to wear a hat?” Jimmy moves one of Tenna’s (she’s wearing two, so they stick out to the side like brightly colored devil horns) so it’s slightly less likely to poke him in the eye.

“Even better!” Tenna waves a crown that looks like it would’ve fit a six year old but certainly not him. “You get a tiara! Or a diadem if you want to keep your masculinity in tact.”

“Gimme the tiara.” Jimmy snatches it out of her hands and examines it. Bright pink gems spell out ‘Happy Birthday,’ and there’s no way he could fit in on his head properly. He sets it on his hair. “Bow down, bitches.”

“Charming,” Edgar says as Jimmy walks over to the table. It’s piled with presents around a cake covered in chocolate frosting and an alarming number of rainbow sprinkles.

“You guys didn’t have to do this,” Jimmy says. There’s like, a lot of presents.

“Don’t be stupid,” Devi says, and that ends that.

“So can we have cake?” 

Johnny speaks up for the first time from where he’s been, well not exactly sulking, but doing his best to look moody while wearing a bright yellow, polka dot party hat. “No, dum-” he pauses and looks at Tess, who isn’t glaring but is staring harder than usual. “We have to do presents first.”

“Open mine first!” Tenna shoves a silver box and a glittery red bag in his hands.

“Shit, okay.” Jimmy looks around. Sitting would probably make this easier, but there’s only one chair, and he’s pretty sure being the only one sitting is rude. Also awkward. He doesn’t like being towered over, no thank you.

“It’s cool if you sit,” Tess says, because Tess is a goddamn mind reader. “You’re the birthday boy.”

Devi drags the chair over to him, and he plunks down in it and tears into the silver present. It’s sort of weird having everyone watch him, but he sort of forgets about it when he opens the box and pulls out a smaller, shiny plastic box. It takes a minute for him to read the loopy font on it as ‘urban decay.’ He looks at Tenna, then at the box, then at Tenna.

“Is this makeup?” he asks.

“It’s a contour kit,” she says. “Everything’s labeled so it’s easy to use. Now open the other one!”

The bag has more fun stuff in it. A few tubes of lipstick, an eyeliner pencil, a small eyeshadow palette, several brushes, and a tube of mascara, which Jimmy’s less excited about, but hey, free shit.

“Thanks,” Jimmy says, and means it. Tenna beams and gives him a hug that’s only a little awkward because of the chair.

“Mine next,” Tess says, and hands him a box wrapped in black and red striped paper. Jimmy shakes it, but there’s nothing special about the sound except that it slides around more than a book would. He opens it and pulls out the sort of jacket he’d dreamed about but never figured he’d be able to get. Every inch is covered in patches, except for the parts that are covered in studs. Each patch is either a band he’s raved about or a political slogan that would’ve caused heart attacks in his old neighborhood. His throat constricts.

“Do you like it?” Tess asks after a few seconds of Jimmy trying to remember how to swallow. 

Jimmy gets up and hugs her. She hugs back, stretching up on her toes to rest her chin on his shoulder. Tenna aww’s, and Jimmy flips her off good naturedly. As she pulls away, Tess kisses his cheek and ruffles his hair. There aren’t tears in his eyes, there are fucking not.

Apparently, getting him choked up is part of the plan today, because Devi and Johnny both give way nicer gifts than he’d expected. Johnny gets him a mix of opera and vintage horror movie posters, including one for something called _Don Giovanni_ that Jimmy’s never heard of but is decorated with a creepy mask and a dude being dragged to hell, and a poster for _Them!_ that he’s fairly sure is an original. Devi hands over her gift of a collapsing chair (“butterfly chair” if Tenna is to be believed) and a side table with a stern command to stop using garbage as furniture, and he can’t really argue with that one.

The last and smallest present is Edgar’s. He hands it to Jimmy without much fanfare, just a mumbled “happy birthday,” and adjusts his glasses when his hands are empty. Jimmy shakes it mostly for show, but he really has no idea what it could be. It doesn’t feel like a box, but the dimensions are too weird to be much else. He tears into it.

“Holy shit.” Jimmy tears the rest of the paper off. “Holy shit.”

“Is that a good holy shit or bad?” Edgar asks. He looks slightly terrified.

Jimmy laughs. “Are you kidding me? This is fucking incredible!”

Edgar has taped about a dozen cd cases together, everything Jimmy needs to start building a proper cd collection. He traces his fingers down the spines of the cases, reading off the band names. Jesus, this must’ve cost a small fortune.

“How much did you _spend_ on this?” Jimmy asks, and Tess smacks lightly him upside the head.

“It’s rude to ask about prices,” she says, then looks closer at the cd’s. “That is fucking wild though.”

“It wasn’t that much,” Edgar says quickly. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, and I sort of panicked. If there’s anything you don’t like, you can return it. I have the receipts.”

“No, no, these are great!” Jimmy says, pulling the stack closer to his chest like Edgar’s going to try and take them. “I can’t believe you got this many.”

Edgar shrugs like he hasn’t dropped a years worth of thrifting in Jimmy’s lap. “You said you didn’t have many cd’s, and you have that nice system, so.” He gestures. “Cd’s.”

“Thank you,” Jimmy says, and then, because he has a reputation to maintain, says, “I’m very disappointed none of you got me alcohol.” He looks at Devi. “A man turns twenty one and you get him a chair.”

“You needed the chair,” she snorts. “I doubt you’ll have any trouble getting drunk.”

“I feel like I should be offended, but since it’s my birthday, you’re excused.”

“Can we have cake now?” Tenna asks.

“Hell yeah,” Jimmy says. He hasn’t had a birthday cake in ages. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices an odd expression on Edgar’s face. He’s staring at Jimmy but also through him, like he’s one of those illusions in kid’s coloring books. Two faces and a vase, wavy lines or straight?

“Edgar, come on!” Tenna waves frantically, phone at the ready. “We’ve got to sing!”

Jimmy balks. “You really don’t-”

“Yes, we do.” Tess grins at him, arms wrapped around a scowling Johnny and a resigned Devi. On second thought…

“Fine, fine,” he says. None of them are particularly good singers, Devi is especially bad, but seeing everyone smiling, or not frowning, in Johnny’s case, it makes him feel safe. He has a place that’s his now. This little pocket of space and time belongs to him, and no one can take it away.

***

What a fucking idiot.


	6. Let Me Get A Fresh Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which no one is having a good time, but things could always be worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I'm so sorry about the long wait. Since the last update, I've written three research papers and also taken both midterms and finals, so I hope you understand the delay.
> 
> Chapter title is from Hopeless Opus by Imagine Dragons. Enjoy!

_Jimmy burns dinner. He’d been thinking about the wolf, a skin and bones creature with gore dribbling from its chin and the only way out, and he’s burned dinner. Mom starts yelling._

_She’s shorter than him, and he’s probably stronger, but as she bears down on him, he freezes up. He wants to bolt and hide, fold himself into something small and unnoticed, but his legs won’t work. Her hand burns his arm like dry ice, freezing the bones so brittle that he’s scared they’ll shatter when she twists it behind his back. He clenches his jaw, against a rush of apologies or the simmering fury in his chest, he isn’t sure._

_She pushes him through the living room. Dad’s sitting in that cracked leather armchair, reading a magazine. Jimmy catches his eye over the shiny paper. There’s no apology, no sympathy, no sign of solidarity in his eyes, and Jimmy isn’t even disappointed. He glares until Dad looks back at the pages._

_Mom steers him toward the basement. The basement. The basement, the basement, thebasement, thebasementthebasement_

_“Dad!” Jimmy pulls against Mom’s grip. His bones creak, and he imagines he feels splinters tearing into his muscles. “Dad! Help!”_

_Dad doesn’t look up. Tears prick Jimmy’s eyes. Mom tugs his arm higher, makes his shoulder burn, and kicks at the backs of his knees. He staggers forward. That plain white door looks so innocent. He makes a terrified noise._

_Mom’s other hand cracks across his skull and sends his senses reeling. She shoves him forward, and he slams his shoulder into the bookshelf. He scrabbles at the edge with his free hand and tears his nails across the slippery smooth wood. A splinter buries itself in his nail bed._

_“Dad!” Jimmy’s voice breaks. He loses his grip on the shelf. “Please, Dad!”_

_“Shut up!” Mom snarls and throws open the door. The darkness gapes like the maw of a beast ready to swallow Jimmy whole. He digs his heels in and grabs at the door frame. The splinter under his nail throbs in time with his rabbit heart._

_“I’m sorry!” The tears overflow. “Dad, please!”_

_His knees give out with another sharp kick and his grip slips. He falls. The door slams shut as he hits the concrete, leaving him alone with the darkness._

_Jimmy sucks in air through gritted teeth. First thing’s first, injuries. His left index finger aches from the splinter, and his right shoulder and arm ache from being twisted. He’ll have bruises on his back if they aren’t there already. When he touches a burning, stinging pain in his hairline, his fingers come back slick with blood. His right side flares with pain every time he tries to take a deep breath. One of the ribs is probably broken. He hauls himself into a sitting position and rests the less bruised parts of his elbows on the stairs._

_Something moves in the depths of the boxes and piles of dusty holiday decorations, something reptilian and rustling, like dozens of snakes and lizards all tangled together and moving over each other. Cold creeps into Jimmy’s fingertips as he slowly edges himself up onto the first step, and the darkness presses his straining eyes back into his skull. A box falls._

_Jimmy flees up the stairs. His rib screams in pain, but he ignores it. Whatever’s with him in the basement, he doesn’t turn to look, knows instinctively that it’ll catch him if he does, crashes through the boxes after him. He ignores it and focuses on the crack of light under the door. If he can just get through he’ll be safe._

_Except the crack isn’t getting any closer. He’s running up the stairs, one hand pressed against his broken rib, and he can’t get any closer to the light. As he runs, the stairs start to change underneath him, the height growing taller and taller as the steps themselves get shorter and shorter, until he’s using his hands to grab at thin ledges with barely enough room for the balls of his feet. Blood drips in his eye and his side feels like there’s a knife in it. When he coughs, red flecks the wood in front of his face, but he doesn’t stop moving. He can feel the breath of whatever monster is behind him on his ankles._

_His foot slips. He slams into the wall that was the stairs, and his fingers lose their grip in the spasm of pain from his side. He falls down, down, into the clutches of something alive, closes his eyes for impact and tearing teeth-_

Jimmy wakes up with his heart and a scream lodged in his throat. His head spins, breath coming in short, jerky gasps. It’s so dark that for a moment he thinks he’s still in the basement, but no, the orange glow of the streetlight outside his window outlines his room, the chair and table Devi’s given him, the twisting forms in his new posters. He’s safe. He’s in his bed, in his apartment, as far away from the basement as he could get without leaving San Niros. No one can hurt him. He’s safe.

An animalistic sob breaks the silence, and Jimmy covers his mouth. He climbs out of bed, wondering in a detached sort of way if he’s going to throw up, and staggers to the bathroom. The shower muffles the sounds of tearing, hiccupping sobs, and he climbs in, boxers and all. It’s hot, too hot on his back, but the pain helps ground him. He’s okay. He’s safe. She can’t hurt him. He digs his nails into his shoulder blades and feels the skin tear and knit back together. Pink swirls chase each other down the drain.

He sits under the water until it goes comfortably warm, then tepid, then cold. It’s only when he can’t control the violent shaking of his limbs that he reaches up and turns the water off. His teeth chatter so hard that he thinks they might crack from the force of it. The shivering makes it hard to take off his boxers, but he manages and tosses them aside with a wet _slop_. He considers the towel but instead shuffles back through the dark apartment and curls up in his nest of blankets and shivers until his muscles ache and a dark, deadweight sleep takes him.

When Jimmy wakes up, he’s somehow more tired than he had been before sleeping, and it takes several minutes to uncurl his aching limbs. He rubs gunk from his eyes and stares at the ceiling long enough for the shadows to shift. It’s only when he can’t stand the taste of his own tongue that he gets up and brushes his teeth, toeing his damp boxers aside.

Turns out that’d been his last pair of clean underwear until Friday, which is par for the fucking course really. It sets the tone for the whole day. Everything grates on his nerves. He snipes at Johnny at the bookstore, which is fairly normal, except he must be in a bad mood too, because it escalates into Devi yelling at both of them and putting them as far away from each other as possible. She doesn’t even pair him with Tess or Edgar to do whatever bullshit busy work she’s saddled them with, which is about the only thing that could’ve at least stopped his mood from getting any blacker.

It’s not that he doesn’t like Tenna, he really does like her, it’s just that her brand of relentless cheer and unexpected efficiency with paper clips while he struggles to make heads or tails of the words swimming around the pages is incredibly goddamn annoying.

“Will you shut up!” Jimmy hadn’t meant to yell, but the echo hangs in the dusty air. Tenna looks like he’s just punted a kitten, confused and hurt. Tears well in her eyes, and Jimmy wants to punch himself in the face and take it back. 

Jesus, he feels like he’s punted a kitten. Worse, even.

A hand closes on his shoulder, and he flinches like he’s been tased. Devi glares down at him. “What the hell is your problem?”

He should apologize now, it’s the perfect chance. 

“I don’t have a fucking problem!” Or he could do that. 

Devi glares harder. “I think you need to go home.”

“I’m fine!”

“You’re clearly not,” she says. “You’re upset and being a massive asshole about it. Go home and come back when you’re feeling better.”

It’s pointless to argue with Devi, so he leaves. He catches the others looking at him on his way out, and, amazingly, it doesn’t make him feel better. Johnny looks disgusted, Tess disappointed, and Edgar just looks sad. Jimmy glares at them all.

Going home is the best option, he’s got hours before work, could listen to more of those cds Edgar got him, but that old itch prickles, demanding blood and sweat and broken bones. There’s no one on the streets though, it’s too hot. Everyone with half a functioning brain has taken shelter indoors, which probably says something about Jimmy as he stalks the streets.

As it turns out, he doesn’t get in a fight before work, though he thinks one of the prep girls considers filleting him when he steals a piece of cantaloupe. He doesn’t even like cantaloupe. The pots and pans take the brunt of his frustration, and he scrubs at burnt spaghetti sauce until the last of his nail polish has flaked off and his hands look like raisins. The taut skin around his fingernails tears when his sponge slips off a burned patch at the bottom of a pot and slams his fingers into sharp bits of dried pasta, making pink flowers bloom as the skin knits back together. A layer of bubbles hugs just above his elbows like the lace of old gloves.

When Jimmy gets off work at midnight, his arms feel like the bones have been replaced with lead, and the skin over his knuckles threatens to split if he clenches them too tightly. The off kilter feeling from this morning has only gotten worse. If he doesn’t do something, _anything_ , soon, he’s going to scream.

He needs a drink.

***

Edgar gets a call at four thirty seven in the morning. He answers it despite the hour and unknown number because, in his experience, nothing good comes from early morning calls. 

“Edgar!” Jimmy’s voice slurs on the other end. God, he hates being right.

“Jimmy?” Edgar asks because his brain’s still not firing on all pistons. “Where’s your phone?”

“‘S dead,” Jimmy says, and giggles. “The bartender’s really nice. She told me to call someone, but listen.” There’s a pause. “Are you listening?”

“Yes,” Edgar sighs and sits up. “I’m listening.”

“Tell her I’m okay,” Jimmy says, clearly very far from okay. “They have good, hey, wait-”

There’s a brief scuffle on the other end, and a woman’s voice speaks. “I take it you’re Edgar?”

“Yeah.” It’s hard to talk on the phone and put on pants at the same time.

“Cool. Can you come pick up your friend? He’s going to end up passed out in a gutter if he goes alone.”

“Oh my god,” Edgar says eloquently. “Has he been causing problems?”

“Nah,” the woman says. “He’s just smashed. Talking about music to anyone who’ll listen. Also kept calling you ‘Edgay.’” 

Edgar can hear the air quotes around the nickname and winces. “That sounds about right. Where is he?”

“The Tin Can. You know where that is?”

“Yeah.” Edgar shoves his feet in his shoes without untying them and grabs the keys. “I’ll be there in ten at the most.”

When Edgar gets to the bar, Jimmy’s slouched against the wall by the door with a stocky person of indeterminate gender. As he gets closer, the person nudges Jimmy, who opens one bleary eye before breaking into a sloppy, lopsided grin. 

“Edgar!” Jimmy stumbles forward, and Edgar grabs his arm reflexively. “I missed you.”

“I saw you earlier today,” Edgar says, trying very hard to ignore the fact that this is the first time he’s touched Jimmy since he broke his finger, unless you counted the Fourth, which Edgar didn’t because that had been all Jimmy. Also the fact the Jimmy reeks of alcohol and cigarettes. He gives himself a mental shake back to the present. “Yesterday, technically.”

Jimmy pouts, still using Edgar’s arm for support. “Nuh-uh. Devi didn’t let us work together. I didn’t get to talk to you.”

“You can talk to me on the way home,” Edgar says, and mouths a thank you to the silently amused bar employee as Jimmy starts to tug him down the street. As promised, Edgar listens to Jimmy’s drunken attempts at philosophizing, which mostly consists of a mix of cheerful nihilism and raw anger at the general state of things, and pretends not to be affected by the way he clings to his arm like they’re a couple in a cheesy rom com. It’s been a week since Jimmy’s birthday, but Edgar’s still reeling a bit from the revelation about his age. In retrospect, he’s not sure why he thought Jimmy was still a teenager since no one had actually brought it up, but he suspects it’s something to do with his general aura of cranky idealism, propensity for melodrama rivaled only by Johnny, and stubborn remnants of acne amongst the freckles on his forehead and chin. 

Abruptly, Jimmy slows, slouching most of his weight against Edgar’s side and nearly knocking them both into a puddle from a recent rainstorm.

“‘S fucked,” Jimmy mumbles into Edgar’s shoulder. “‘S all fucked.”

“What are you talking about?” Edgar guides him to the wall at the mouth of a dead end alley and leans them both against it. The orange glow of a streetlight encases them in a small bubble, and even with the wall right there, Jimmy still keeps most of his weight pressed close to Edgar, hanging off his arm. His eyes are all blown pupils with silvery rims of washed out iris, and there’s something unnerving about the way the fire in his eyes seems to have gone out.

“It’s all fucked,” Jimmy repeats, very carefully enunciating his words. “The world, I mean. Monsters are real and people are terrible. Look at Todd. Kid’s parents are evil and no one gives a fuck, and the people who do can’t do anything, and the ones who do are hypocrites who fuck it up.”

Edgar gets a funny feeling that somewhere in there, Jimmy stopped talking about Todd. He starts to reach for Jimmy’s shoulder before thinking better of it and letting his hand fall back to his side. Jimmy doesn’t seem to notice. He’s focused on the graffiti, a blurry line where black and blue just barely merge. The silence stretches, and Edgar knows he should say something, but the words stick in the back of his throat. His chest feels tight as he watches Jimmy’s listless slump, and he can’t _not_ reach out to him again.

The fabric of Jimmy’s shirt is tissue paper thin, like it’d tear if Edgar curled his hand into a fist, and warm with body heat. He can feel every bone, every twitch of muscle, every slow breath, speeding up now that Jimmy’s eyes are back on him. Under the streetlight, Edgar imagines those eyes flashing orange. 

“It’s going to be alright,” Edgar says, not sure if he’s talking about the situation with Todd or whatever thing he knows happened to Jimmy or the world in general. 

Jimmy shakes his head and shrugs Edgar’s hand off, though he doesn’t unwind their arms. “You can believe that,” he says. “You’re pretty much a saint. World could use more people like you.”

“I’m not a saint,” Edgar says even as his face warms.

“Never said you were.” Jimmy makes a dismissive, shushing gesture in Edgar’s face when he tries to protest. “Said you were pretty much a saint. There’s a difference.”

He looks so proud of himself that Edgar’s heart does a backflip. “I’m not that either.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“You’re a good person too.” 

“Nuh-uh.” Jimmy’s smile drips with self loathing. “I’m an asshole. Everyone says so. You think I’m an asshole.”

“No, I don’t,” Edgar says. He stares Jimmy down, watches the smile melt off his face. “Nice and good aren’t the same thing. You can be abrasive and rude, but a bad person wouldn’t care the way you do. You act like you don’t give a damn about anyone or anything, but you do.”

Jimmy stares at him with round eyes, lips slightly parted. The air is still.

In a surprising burst of speed and grace, Jimmy pulls them into the alley and presses Edgar to the rough brick with the full weight of his body. One hand clenches in Edgar’s t shirt while the other rests on his shoulder, and Jimmy presses his face right up against his neck, warm breath leaving goosebumps on the exposed skin. The smell of alcohol is so strong that Edgar’s distantly surprised Jimmy’s body heat doesn’t send them both up in flames. A desperate noise escapes Jimmy’s throat as he nuzzles further into the place where neck meets shoulder and rolls his hips. The universe collapses in on itself until it’s nothing but their bodies pressed together in the dead of night in a sleeping city. Instinctively, Edgar holds on to the subtle flare of Jimmy’s hips, just above the cutting edge of bone.

“Fuck me,” Jimmy gasps, begs. “Edgar, please, I need-” a small sound of lips being licked that Edgar almost feels- “fuck, fuck, I need you to fuck me, _please_.”

“ _Jimmy._ ” Edgar means it to be a reprimand but it sounds more like a plea of his own. He goes rock hard in his jeans so fast it leaves him lightheaded, knows Jimmy can feel it.

“Yeah, c’mon.” Jimmy makes a breathy sound and grinds forward. “C’mon babe, want you so bad.”

“Not your babe,” Edgar says, mostly reflex, even has hot, desperate need pushes the air out of his lungs. “Jimmy-” He cuts off as fingers clumsily trace over his brow and cheekbone, breath stuttering painfully in his chest.

“So pretty,” Jimmy murmurs, trailing his fingers down Edgar’s jaw to rest at the side of his throat. “So beautiful. God, I want-”

Jimmy presses thin, dry lips to Edgar’s neck.

Edgar gasps and slams his head back against the brick, hard enough to feel it in the morning, staring at the opposite wall and holding Jimmy’s hips still. God, he wants, how could he not? How can he not be tempted by the sweet, pliant body pressed against him and begging for whatever Edgar will give him? He wants to get Jimmy horizontal and fuck him til he screams, wants to taste whatever he’s been drinking.

But Jimmy _has_ been drinking.

“Jimmy, stop.” Edgar pushes Jimmy off him, still keeping one arm around his waist to stop him from falling back. Jimmy looks confused and hurt, far more openly than he ever would sober.

“But-” Jimmy glances at Edgar’s cock in his jeans and seems reassured “-why?”

“You’re drunk,” Edgar says. “Really drunk.”

Jimmy shakes his head like a petulant child. “I’m fine.” He over enunciates slightly and tries to lean into Edgar again. Edgar allows him a small shuffle but still holds him a good distance away. Even though it’s summer, the air feels cold without Jimmy’s body heat. “Please, Edgar, I need-”

“What you need,” Edgar interrupts gently, “is a glass of water and some sleep.”

“You don’t care about me,” Jimmy says and slumps, looking away from him, and Edgar sighs through his nose.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Edgar taps his finger lightly on Jimmy’s ribs where he can feel them pushing like pale, dead branches against his skin through threadbare fabric. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

This apparently, is the right thing to say, or close enough to it that Jimmy allows himself to be led out of the alley. Even this part of the city is still and quiet at this time of night, with the only sound coming from distant freeway traffic and the hum of sodium lights and Jimmy’s occasional murmured directions. Exhaustion seems to be wearing down Jimmy’s earlier desperation, and when he slumps back against Edgar, it’s with a stifled yawn.

When they stop outside Jimmy’s apartment building- well, that’s a strong descriptor, tenament is more accurate- Edgar hesitates.

“Do you want me to come in with you?”

Jimmy pauses where he’s already climbed on the first step and looks back, the barest trace of a smirk tugging at his lips. The place where those lips touched Edgar’s neck tingles with the ghost of electricity.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “Even drunk I’m the toughest thing in this place.”

It sounds like normal Jimmy posturing, and in the faint blue glow from the laundromat’s neon sign across the street and the stubborn light of a half moon, he looks almost insubstantial, darkness and sex and something fragile and warm as a candle flame clinging to bird bones. And yet, somehow, Edgar finds himself believing him. It’s the way he says it, utterly serious and without a hint of his usual bravado. Without another word and without looking back, Jimmy disappears inside.

***

Over the next couple days, if Jimmy remembers any of the events from the liminal space between Monday night and Tuesday morning, he’s not showing it. He’s as loud and defiant as always and has, since Johnny started bringing in the pieces for the coffee bar, taken up a propensity for making inappropriate puns about screws. That doesn’t stop Edgar from remembering though. 

It’s not for want of trying, for the record. During the day, Edgar very pointedly does not think about any of it and treats Jimmy like he always has. At night though, when he’s trying to sleep, his mind insists on not only replaying every second in technicolor detail, but imagining any number of other ways the encounter could have ended. Most of which involve the two of them horizontal and naked, but no small number have involved them being mostly clothed and vertical. His subconscious clearly isn’t picky. Still, he refuses to do anything about it, and as it turns out, that has consequences of its own.

His first migraine happened when he was nearly sixteen. It had come on slowly over the course of the school day until his seventh hour teacher had made one of the other honor roll students walk him to the nurse because he hadn’t been able to lift his head off the desk. His mom hadn’t been able to pick him up, so the nurse gave him some tylenol, and he took the bus home. The next one wasn’t for at least six months, and no one made the connection to the first one, why would they. His mom took him to the doctor when he had one lasting two days, which was about when he started keeping a migraine journal. No one actually did anything. 

By the time he went to college, Edgar had migraines about once a month with some other kind of headache once a week, but he’d assumed that was part of the grieving process. Some side effect of losing the only family you’d ever really known. It until he was ready to graduate and doctors kept giving him non answers that he finally took to the internet to find out why the pain never seemed to go away.

So yeah, Edgar knows quite a lot about his headaches after living with them for twelve years. Stress makes them worse. Sleep deprivation makes them worse. He also knows quite a lot about himself after putting up with his own shit for twenty eight years. Namely, he can’t sleep when he’s stressed and makes such stellar choices as scrolling through the depths of the internet until five in the morning even though he has to be at Devi’s shop in like four hours.

So he’s disappointed but not surprised when he wakes up with a motherfucker of a migraine after what is less of a going to bed and more of a glorified nap. He goes into work anyway because he’s already missed two days in the past two weeks, and the plan for today is just looking for whatever cheap-but-still-high-quality coffee making machines they can afford, so it’s not like he’s going to be doing any heavy lifting. He’ll be fine.

The world pulses violently as Edgar stands and sends him staggering into his desk with black spots bursting and swimming in his vision. Every beat of his heart shakes his brain and rattles the world into focus. He grits his teeth and sucks in deep, even breaths until he can lift his head without feeling like he’ll keel over. Moving his head as little as possible, he makes a mug of coffee and shakes three excedrin out of the bottle. He’s running low. Making a mental note to buy more this weekend, he knocks the pills back and winces at the bitter, burned taste of the coffee. He’ll be fine.

It’s an unbearably sunny day, and the glare off the pavement nearly forces Edgar back inside. He wishes, not for the first time, that he could afford those glasses that tinted with sunlight. He can’t, so he just squints at the ground in front of him and ignores the furious pounding behind his eyes. He’s _fine._

In a way, Edgar supposes he’s lucky he’s had this constant, chronic pain for so long. He barely notices it except for days like this. He’s mastered the art of hiding it. It’s almost a point of pride that no one knows. None of his colleagues at work have any idea, why would they, he rarely uses his sick days, and until now he didn’t have anyone he considered a friend who he could tell. 

As he turns onto Devi’s street, Edgar feels eyes on him. Animal instinct wins out over the pain, and he looks up and around to find the source of the prickling over his skin. Huddling in the doorway of an abandoned shop are the three people from a few weeks ago who wanted to talk to Tess. What were their names? Anna and Dustin? Did he even catch the third person’s name? 

The sensation of being watched doesn’t fade as he draws closer to the store, and the man whose name isn’t Dustin but something similar stares him down, glowing like a thunderhead and wearing an unseasonable bomber jacket. Edgar holds his stare until he passes them and only looks back at the ground when the sunlight gets to be too much. For July, the air’s taken on quite the chill.

Devi nods at him from where she’s hunched over the checkout counter with her laptop in front of her when he walks in. On the other side of the storefront, Johnny sits cross legged and surrounded by wood panels and planks, squinting at a plan and having an avid conversation with himself. He doesn’t say hello, and Edgar’s learned not to talk to him when he gets like this. Edgar wants to talk to them about the trio across the street, but this seems like a bad time. 

Down the two far aisles, Tenna and Jimmy are caught in a furious battle of shooting rubber bands at each other between the shelves. From the growing carpet of them down the center aisle, Edgar doubts any have made it all the way through, but that doesn’t seem to deter either of them. As he watches, Tenna shoots a rubber band off her finger, and Jimmy dives off to the side and lands at Devi’s feet. He grins a shit eating grin at her and Edgar.

“Evening, comrade,” he says in a terrible Russian accent. “Will you join me in fight against capitalism?”

“Hang on!” Tenna pokes her head out from behind the shelves before Edgar can process what the hell’s going on. “Why am I capitalism?”

Instead of responding, Jimmy hits her right between the eyebrows with a rubber band and whoops with delight while she shrieks. Edgar bites down on a wince. He’s fine. It’s fine. Tenna throws a rubber band ball at Jimmy’s stomach where his shirt’s ridden up, and it bounces off as he curls up with a loud _oof!_ The ball bounces once and hits Johnny’s shoulder.

“Tenna threw it!” Jimmy yelps. Johnny looks furious at having his thought process interrupted and grabs the nearest throwable object, which turns out not to be the rubber band ball, but a screwdriver.

“You miserable tick!” Johnny’s voice rises quickly into a screech, and Jimmy scrambles back behind the bookshelves.

“Alright, that’s enough!” Edgar shouts. Everyone but Devi stares. His head gives a particularly painful throb. “Johnny, drop the screwdriver, that’s unnecessary. Jimmy, Tenna, don’t make me give you the same lecture I give middle schoolers. Do that shit outside or not at all.”

Jimmy mutters “party pooper” and sulks back towards the office until a sharp command from Devi has him and Tenna picking up the mess of rubber bands. Johnny uncurls his fingers from the screwdriver and lets it clatter to the ground. Edgar rests his elbows on the checkout counter next to Devi and sighs heavily.

“You look like shit,” she says by way of greeting. “Late night?”

“Thanks,” Edgar says drily. “I couldn’t sleep.”

She grunts sympathetically. “You up for working? I can wait til Tess gets off her shift to do this.”

“She picked up another one?”

“Don’t change the subject, Vargas.” Devi says mildly.

He sighs. He’s not sure why he bothers trying to bullshit her. “I’m fine. I’ve had worse.”

The thing is, he’s not actually sure if that’s true. It’s been a long time since he had a migraine like this, all waves of fire rushing back and forth in the space between skull and brain, and he can’t remember if the last one was worse than this. Devi purses her lips and searches his face for something. After a few seconds she clicks her tongue and turns back to her laptop and the half dozen tabs of online retailers.

“Whatever you say,” she says. “So what were you thinking for coffee machines?”

Edgar shrugs. “I think it depends on what you want to do with the coffee bar, and the budget.”

“Well we don’t have a tremendous amount of money left,” Devi says, and blows some hair out of her face. The color is faded and her roots are growing back. “The really fancy ones go for a couple grand, but that’d screw the rest of the budget, and I still need to commission Johnny for a sign out front.”

“Not one of those then,” Edgar muses. “What are you going to call this place anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Devi purses her lips again. “The old name was New Roads Used Books, but I can’t decide if I want to keep it or not. It feels wrong to change the name abuela gave it, but I think I want to change it. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

Behind them, Johnny resumes his conversation with himself. Edgar catches a few sentences about the weather, the coffee station, and forcing an unspecified “him” to eat his own arms, in that order. Edgar tunes him out again.

“I understand,” Edgar says. He’d been floundering and lost after his mom died. He almost didn’t finish high school, and his grades had slipped so badly in that last semester that he’d lost a scholarship. The decision to continue with his education and go to college had been pretty easy, he’d already had his heart set on being a teacher, but the decision to move out of the apartment he’d grown up in had been painful. It’d felt like giving up the last bit of his mom that he’d had.

Devi sighs and drags a hand down her face, looking suddenly exhausted. “I don’t know the first thing about running a business,” she says. “I went to art school. I’m a painter. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here. I don’t even like retail.”

“Well first of all,” Edgar says with a small smile, “no one likes retail. Second of all, you’ve been doing great so far. This place is a breath of fresh air, and you’ll get plenty of business with the coffee bar. If you need help, you have plenty of friends who’ll help, and the internet is great for things like this.”

She smiles a small, close lipped smile that, from her, is a radiant grin. “Thanks.” Then, quick as flipping a switch, she’s back to being all business, all sign of doubt and exhaustion gone. She clicks to a different tab on her laptop. “So I’ve been looking around, but we really need to figure out how much we want to spend first.”

“Yeah,” Edgar says, mentally scrambling to keep up. His head burns with the laptop’s harsh glow. “I guess the big question is whether we want to splurge on a nice one now or buy a decent one and then upgrade when we have more money.”

Devi hums thoughtfully. “There’s a couple that are mid range price, like eight hundred bucks instead of two grand, and if we can get a payment plan instead of paying all in one go, I think that’d be manageable.” 

“Did you have one in mind?” Edgar bends down to look at the screen. 

“I’ve looked at a couple,” Devi says, and clicks to a different page with a sleek, futuristic looking machine with two nozzles for coffee and an intimidating amount of buttons. He reads through the information and descriptions, then does the same for the others she’s picked out. None of them cost below five hundred, but they all have payment plans available.

“These are good,” Edgar says. “I don’t think they’d be to hard to install, and even if they are, we have Jimmy.”

“What about me?” Jimmy asks from where he and Tenna are still picking up rubber bands. Edgar has to put conscious effort into not looking at him, and he tells himself it’s to avoid moving his head any more than necessary. Even to himself, he’s a shitty liar.

“Nothing,” Devi says. “Coffee machines.”

Jimmy makes a disinterested noise, and Edgar hears the distinct sound of a rubber band being flicked.

“Jimmy,” Edgar says in a warning tone. “What did I say?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Sure,” Edgar says, already turning his attention back to the coffee machines. He could press the issue as an excuse to talk to Jimmy, or at the very least to get them to stop shooting rubber bands, but that front is particularly hopeless. Tenna and Jimmy are terrible enablers, encouraging each other and gossipping in equal parts and prompting a dry comment from Tess about twink/femme solidarity just last week.

“So which one do you think we should get?” Devi asks, bringing Edgar back to earth with a gentle bump. 

“Financially, I’d say the five hundred dollar one on a payment plan,” Edgar says. “I’m sure they all make about the same quality coffee. If you have one in mind though, it should be your decision. It’s your shop.”

Devi hums noncommittally and pulls the laptop back towards her. Edgar shuffles out of her way, determined to ignore the little reddish black spots dancing in his vision. He’s fine. He’s had worse. 

“I’ll have to see it in relation to the cost of everything else we’ll need,” Devi says, talking more to herself than him. “We’ll need mugs, but we can get those up at Target. We’ll need to wash them, Johnny have you factored a sink into-” she pauses, eyes darting back and forth over an invisible problem, then slams her palms onto the counter on either side of her laptop. “We can’t afford to change the plumbing, god _damn_ it!”

She buries her head in her hands. “I can’t believe I didn’t think about that, what an _idiot!_ Johnny was right, this is never going to work.”

Edgar casts a mildly terrified glance at Tenna, who shrugs helplessly, rubber band ball in hand. Seeing Devi have a crisis of confidence is sort of like watching a supposedly earthquake proof building shudder in time with the ground. You know it’s supposed to be fine and that it’ll probably be over soon and still be fine, but goddamn if it isn’t scary.

“Devi,” Edgar says cautiously. She doesn’t lift her head, but she stops cussing herself out to listen. At least, Edgar hopes she’s listening. “What’s the worst case scenario here?”

Devi snorts. “I sink every penny abuela left me and a lot of my own money into a project that fails and have to sell the place for bare minimum so I don’t go into debt.

“Okay,” Edgar says. “What’s the best case scenario?”

Devi lifts her head just enough to give him a skeptical look, dark eyebrows arched. “We miraculously get the plumbing done cheap and have to get a cheap, second hand coffee machine, but everything still works out and we can upgrade later.”

“Now what’s the most likely scenario?”

She opens her mouth, and Edgar quickly amends, “Objectively, not based on how you feel now.”

“Probably a variation on the second,” Devi admits.

“Probably,” Edgar agrees. “Right now it’s just a matter of prioritizing. You need to figure out what solutions we can afford and in which order we’re going to do this in.”

“You’re right.” Devi sighs like she’s trying to expel her soul from her body. “Can you get my budget sheet from the office? It’s on the legal pad.”

“No problem,” Edgar says, and straightens up. 

The pain is unlike anything he’s ever felt, acidic burning and unbearable pressure and stabbing stabbing stabbing as the world seems to buckle and heave under his feet. The black that blots out his vision is simultaneously dark as night and dancing with neon colors. His pulse is a cacophony in his ears. His legs turn to water, he’s falling, and as the small part of his brain that isn’t screaming braces for impact, he thinks he hears someone cry out his name.

***

Jimmy’s not too ashamed to admit that he thought fainting was funny up until now. Fainting happens to those uppity women in those historic dramas Tess pretends not the like but watches on her laptop when he’s crashing at her place when the sounds of the neighbors fighting at his apartment is too much. Fainting doesn’t happen to people like Edgar, unflappable and strong in a quiet sort of way.

Honestly, Jimmy still would’ve thought it was funny if it’d happened to anyone else. Edgar had straightened up and just sort of kept going. None of that knees buckling, gasping shit, just eyes rolling back and body in a straight line, pitching toward Johnny’s pile of wooden boards. Instead, his mind and body seize in terror. He shouts Edgar’s name in dumb panic and sways forward, but his feet refuse to work. 

Devi moves first, darting behind Edgar and catching him under the armpits. Johnny, having been out of his weird stupor for several minutes now, scrambles to clear a space for them. By the time Jimmy jolts out of his stupor, even Tenna is standing over them, hands fluttering uselessly in the air. He joins them, pushing Tenna aside, and crouches across from Johnny. The air around them stinks like adrenaline. 

Edgar’s head is on Devi’s lap, and he’s already blinking awake. The relief that washes through Jimmy makes him lightheaded to the point where he can’t even be made about the weakness. He breathes in the coffee cinnamon books smell of Edgar and clenches his fists in his lap to hide the shaking.

“What?” Edgar croaks, as if he’s been asleep for hours.

“You fainted,” Devi says calmly.

“Are you okay?” Tenna demands at the same time, much less calmly.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re sick?” Johnny all but shouts, bug eyes bright with tears. “Don’t you trust me? I made you soup!”

“Johnny, shut up,” Devi snaps. 

Jimmy can’t speak. All he can do is stare at Edgar, take in the dark circles under his eyes. The angles of his face seem harsher, and his lips have been chewed to patchy red. A sheen of sweat covers his forehead. The fall has rumpled his hair, and Jimmy’s fingers ache to smooth it back into place. Devi had been right, he looks like shit. He clenches his fists tighter, digging his nails into the skin.

“I’m fine,” Edgar says. “It’s fine.”

He tries to get up and winces. Devi pushes his shoulders down. 

“Bullshit,” she says. “Tenna’s going to get you some water, and then I’m taking you to the hospital.” Edgar starts to protest weakly, but she ignores him except for a couple pats on the shoulder that are probably meant to be soothing. “Jimmy, Johnny, piss off, you’re crowding him.”

Johnny makes an angry noise, but slinks away under the withering glare Devi gives him. Jimmy doesn’t move. It’s like he’s taken root through the tears in his jeans and couldn’t move if he wanted to, which he doesn’t, because the skin under Edgar’s eyes looks purplish and delicate. He can’t just _leave_ , not when he doesn’t know what’s wrong, what if Edgar faints again?

“Don’t worry,” Edgar says, giving Jimmy a sympathetic look. “I really am fine.”

Jimmy scowls. “I’m not fucking worried.”

He pushes himself off the ground, nearly colliding with Tenna and her cup of water, and goes over to stand next to Johnny. Stand is probably the wrong word. They’re both sulking, arms crossed and refusing to look at each other or at Edgar insisting he can sit up, really, he’s fine.

“He deserves better than you,” Johnny mutters, low enough that Edgar wouldn’t have a hope of hearing him.

“Excuse me?” Jimmy whispers back. The fear in his chest is melting into frustration and anger.

“Edgar. He deserves better than a miscreant like you.”

Jimmy’s not entirely sure what a miscreant is, but he knows enough to know to be offended. “Who the fuck are you to decide?”

“I’m his best friend,” Johnny hisses, “and you’re not good enough for him.”

It’s not that Jimmy hasn’t thought that himself, but hearing Johnny say it with mouth curled in disgust makes his blood boil. He’s not in the mood for this bullshit today, and he’s not afraid to knock a motherfucker out.

“You’re not good enough either,” Jimmy says. Johnny makes an unpleasant noise, but doesn’t actually disagree. 

Devi helps Edgar stand, keeping a hand braced on his shoulder. None of them miss the way he sways and winces. “I’m taking Edgar home,” she says, then with a pointed look at Jimmy and Johnny, “Do not start fighting.”

Then they’re gone. The air feels thick and humid like the storms Jimmy used to hide under his bed from until he learned there were worse things to fear than the elements. Blood still pounds in his ears and makes his fingers tingle with the tight heat sensation of being very warm after being very cold. Tenna looks uncomfortable, and Johnny still has that nasty, holier-than-thou look that makes Jimmy want to punch his face in so badly not even supernatural healing will be able to help him.

“I’m taking a walk,” he growls, and leaves before anyone can stop him. He walks aimlessly, letting his feet carry him as he wrestles with the bloodlust. It’s only when he ends up in front of a familiar steel skeleton and torn tarp skin that he stops.

When he goes back to the shop a half hour later, the skin on his hands is pink and new, and no one comments on the fresh stains on his jeans.

***

Edgar doesn’t bother fighting Devi until they get in her car. Now that he’s fainted, he gives up on hiding how much his head fucking hurts too, and lets himself double over and shield his eyes from the light. Devi turns the car on and the radio off before more than a fraction of a note of something loud and angry gets out.

“You don’t need to take me to the hospital,” Edgar says softly.

Devi makes a disbelieving noise. “You fainted, Edgar.”

“I know,” he says, ears burning, “but I’m fine, I swear.”

“Are you sick?”

“No, not-” Edgar hesitates. “No.”

He feels more than sees her side eye him at a stop sign. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying,” Edgar says. “It’s just a migraine. It sucks but it’ll go away.”

Even to himself he sounds defeated, so he’s not surprised that Devi picks up on it. The car starts moving again.

“Edgar,” she says in as close to a gently voice as he’s heard from her, “what’s wrong?”

His stomach ties itself in knots, and he can hear his pulse in his ears, though both of those might just be from the migraine. It gets hard to tell sometimes.

“It’s not dangerous,” Edgar prefaces, which earns him another unimpressed noise. “Today was a fluke, but I promise, you don’t have to take me to the hospital.”

“Have you eaten in the last few days?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been getting enough water?”

“Yes.”

“Have-”

“Look, whatever you’re going to ask, it won’t have anything to do with the headache,” Edgar snaps. “They just happen sometimes.”

Devi doesn’t look hurt, doesn’t even take her eyes off the road, but the corners of her mouth tighten and one eyebrow arches dangerously.

“Sorry,” Edgar says.

“Fuck’s sake, don’t apologize,” she says with an exasperated glance at him. They drive in silence until they get to his apartment complex, and neither of them make any move to break it when Devi walks him to his door. It’s funny, he’s had more people over in the past month because of his migraines than in the past three years combined. He can’t remember the last time he had someone over before this summer. 

Devi leans against the wall as he kicks off his shoes and nudges them against the wall, taking in the heavy curtains across the windows and empty coffee mugs on the table. Her eyes narrow when she sees the bottle of excedrin next to his mug from this morning.

“Thanks for the ride,” Edgar says. He just wants to sleep.

“No problem,” Devi says. She hesitates like she’s debating something, then says, “Whatever’s going on with you, you could’ve told us. You could’ve told me.”

Edgar shrugs. “I didn’t want to impose. We’re only sort of friends.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she snorts. “Of course we’re friends. You’re pretty much the only sane friend I have.”

Edgar thinks of the rubber band war and Johnny’s near constant muttering and has to admit she has a point. Although…

“Tess is pretty sane.”

“You would think so,” Devi says, “but there’s a reason she gets along with Jimmy and Johnny.”

“You’re talking a lot of shit for someone who acts like you,” Edgar says.

Devi starts to argue, then pauses. “You know what? You’re right. That makes you the only sane person any of us know.”

“That’s too much responsibility.” Edgar smiles, then winces as his head pounds, angry at having been ignored. Devi pushes off the wall.

“I should let you sleep,” she says.

Edgar nods, then remembers what he saw on the walk to the store.

“Wait,” he says. “Those people who wanted to talk to Tess the other day, her exes or whatever they are, they were outside the shop today.”

A shadow flits over her face, something dangerous that’s gone so quickly Edgar might’ve imagined it, and then she’s as stoic as ever. “It’s fine,” she says. “I’ll take care of it.”

Edgar thinks calling it fine is certainly one of the bigger loads of shit he’s heard today, and that’s including his own, but he also figures if anyone can take care of something with as little mess as possible, it’s Devi. It won’t be any of the rest of them at any rate.

“Okay,” he says. “Be careful.”

Devi chuckles. “Don’t worry, they’re just-” She cuts off and tilts her head. “Well, I was going to say they’re just bitchy goths, but that sums up the rest of us pretty well too.”

“Just a bit.” 

“I’m gonna get going,” she says. “You rest, and don’t come over tomorrow if you still feel like shit. And don’t forget to eat.”

“Why do people keep saying that?” Edgar mutters.

Devi rolls her eyes at him as she opens the door. “Because we care about you, dumbass.”

***

Jimmy listen to Devi go from yelling at Anne and her lackeys across the street to talking to them in voices too low to make out to a very ominous silence. When he hears her boots (steel toed and one hundred percent capable of fucking up a wiry beanpole like Jimmy) crunching on asphalt, he scrambles over to Johnny and Tenna and pretends he’s been helping them figure out how to make the pile of wood into a coffee bar the whole time. He doesn’t think it works, and it turns out next to Johnny is not a particularly great position to be in.

Devi bears down on Johnny like a thunderhead and takes full advantage of her impressive height to do it.

“What did you do?” She growls at him. Jimmy’s never seen someone look down their nose at a much taller person while sitting cross legged on the ground, but Johnny manages it pretty well.

“I couldn’t possibly know what you mean,” he says primly. It doesn’t impress Devi, and Jimmy and Tenna both scoot out of the line of fire.

“Cut the shit, Calcerrada,” Devi snaps. “We said we’d only let you stay with us if you stopped fucking killing people, and you didn’t.”

Jimmy’s stomach drops straight through the floor so fast that he tastes bile in the back of his throat, and he knows he looks panicked. He glances at Tenna, who at least looks rattled by the revelation, so maybe he can pass it off as run of the mill surprise.

Of course he’d known Johnny was a killer before Devi and Tess had told him in the apartment upstairs along with a crash course on becoming a werewolf, it was how he’d found Johnny and gotten himself turned. He’d been patrolling a few square blocks around his house and killing whoever didn’t fit into his black and white morality. Bad for people’s sense of security, but the number of sex crimes, armed robberies, and assaults had plummeted, so it was a mixed bag in Jimmy’s mind. But in the months between Jimmy first seeing Johnny tear a man’s rib cage open with his bare hands and actually finding him again and getting turned, Johnny had stopped killing. 

“You slander me,” Johnny says. “I’ve been the patron saint of not murdering, the very paragon of mental stability. I should get a pet.”

Even Jimmy knows how flagrantly untrue most of that is, but there’s a nugget of truth in there, and he clamps down on it.

“Then why,” Devi says with barely contained fury, “was there a murder identical to yours a _month_ after we let you join us?”

Johnny fakes surprise well. Jimmy thinks he could’ve been an actor if he wasn’t so insane. 

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Johnny says coolly. “Not after joining you guys, anyway. It was probably a copycat. Look it up, I hear it’s very popular for fans of serial killers to try to imitate the master’s work, even if it’s an insult at best.”

“I know what a copycat is,” Devi snaps. “Shit, you’re lucky I know you’re not lying, or I swear I’d kick your ass into New Mexico. You’ve already put us in enough danger. Fuck, if they don’t believe this copycat theory, they’ll be out for blood, and I don’t know if I can stop them.”

Her words ring heavy in the air, floating like the dust in the dazzling sunshine. Jimmy fights the urge to shift and focuses on keeping his breathing and heartbeat steady.

“Um,” Tenna says. “Are they gone? Cause Tess gets off her shift soon and I don’t think it’s a good idea for them to be here when she gets back.”

Devi doesn’t relax, but she stops looming over them, absently helping Tenna to her feet. “She’ll probably stop at her place to change, so I can have them gone by then.”

“Okay,” Tenna says. “Is Edgar okay?”

Jimmy tries not to be too obvious about perking up, but his heart rate accelerates. Tenna gives him a look that makes it clear she’s at least partly asked for his sake. Johnny perks up to him, and something ugly and mean in Jimmy’s chest snarls that Johnny doesn’t deserve to be worried.

“He’s got a migraine,” she says, and a different kind of tension fills her shoulders. It takes Jimmy a moment to identify it as worry. “He says he’s fine, but I get the impression this happens more often than it should.”

“Is he sick?” Jimmy asks, and he hates how small he sounds just then. He hates how small he feels.

“He says it’s not dangerous, and he didn’t sound like he was lying, but…”

They all know the rest of that sentence. Just because Edgar believes whatever it is isn’t dangerous, doesn’t mean it isn’t. Or something. Edgar could think he’s telling the truth, believe it with all his bleeding heart, and could be dying for all he knew. The idea makes a hard knot of panic rise in his throat.

“That doesn’t sound great,” Tenna says, a bit obviously, but Jimmy’s just grateful for something else to focus on.

“We could turn him,” Johnny says, cool as a fucking cucumber.

“Absolutely not,” Devi says.

“I know you went around turning people willy nilly,” Tenna snaps, and wow, she actually sounds pissed about this, “but we can’t just turn someone without them knowing what they’re getting into. _Especially_ not with hunters sitting on our asses.”

They’re right, of course they are, they’re always right, but Jimmy can’t help but think that it’d be worth making an exception for Edgar. He never wants to see that horrible pitch backward again, smell the fear and pain under books and coffee. He glances at Johnny and gets the feeling they’re on the same page in this.

“Speaking of,” Devi says, “I need to tell Anne to fuck off before I shove my boot up her ass, magically enhanced strength be damned.” She looks at Jimmy for the first time. “And get up Jimmy, I know you weren’t helping them.”

Jimmy scowls and stands up, ignoring the hand she’s offered. Her eyes catch the dark stains on his jeans, and he knows she smells the metallic tang. The spots are still tacky on his skin where they’ve soaked through the fabric.

“What happened to you?” she asks. He knows she’s judging him for finding trouble in the half hour she was gone.

“Got in a fight,” Jimmy says. He knows she knows it’s a lie, there’s no foreign smell on him, and he’s in a room full of human lie detectors, but after a long pause, she shrugs.

“Be careful,” she says, then, back to being her usual drill sargent self, says, “Grab my clipboard out of the office for me. I asked Edgar to, but you saw how that went.”

Jimmy mock salutes her, and she rolls her eyes before pushing his arm down and heading back outside. As Jimmy heads to the office, he hears the catlike prowl of Johnny’s footsteps. When the door closes, Johnny’s in front of him before Jimmy can blink. His teeth glint in the low light, sharp as knives.

“This is your fault!” Johnny snarls.

Jimmy moves quickly out of arms range, keeping an eye on Johnny’s spidery hands. It’s never a good idea to ignore them when Johnny’s in a mood.

“It is not!” Jimmy hisses back, aware that Tenna’s still in the shop and probably straining to make out their conversation. Her gossipping skills are way more fun when he’s not on the receiving end, and he’d prefer to keep it that way.

“ _I_ stopped killing when they asked.” Johnny jabs a finger and Jimmy’s chest. “ _You_ had to go act out your stupid revenge fantasy.”

“Yeah, well, if you hadn’t _left me_ , maybe I wouldn’t have gone back!” It’s so hard to keep his voice down. He wants to scream the words at Johnny, try to make him understand. 

Johnny either senses this, or, more likely, really doesn’t want to have this conversation, because he backs off a bit. “Now isn’t the time for this.”

Jimmy snorts. “It never is with you.”


	7. Left A Scar Sized Extra Large

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things boil over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is penance for the super long wait. I did have a lot of fun writing this chapter though, I've been looking forward to it for months! It's a bit short but I promise it's good.
> 
> Title comes from Reckless Abandon by Blink-182
> 
> Edit: changed some things in the flashback scene and fixed some typos in the rest

The weekend passes before they’re all back at the bookstore, late in the afternoon on Monday because Johnny had a proper commission uptown and Todd needed somewhere to eat dinner. Edgar’s back, looking calm and unruffled as ever, or as unruffled as someone can be with four people double and triple checking that he’s absolutely sure he’s okay. His cheeks and ears slowly turn redder and redder, and Jimmy, from where he’s leaning against a shelf at the far end of the aisle of shelves, gets the impression that Edgar is some combination of embarrassed and annoyed. 

Not that he’d ever say anything about it. Edgar’s got a disgustingly saintly trait of never telling people to fuck the fuck off when he needs to.

Tess breaks away from the group and goes over to stand next to Jimmy. He’s taller than her, technically speaking, but when he slouches, they’re about the same height. She gives him a sideways look and nudges him with her elbow. “You okay?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking him that?” Jimmy says with a jerk of his chin at Edgar, trying, and probably failing, not to sound bitter. Tess rolls her eyes.

“I already asked him, dumbass,” she says. “He’s fine, by the way.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Jimmy says.

“You’re usually a pretty good liar, but that was just sad.” She adjusts her glasses. “Why don’t you talk to him?”

Jimmy thinks about his drunken attempt at seduction and Edgar’s rejection and feels his face burn. He knows it’s pointless to pretend not to care, Tess knows all about it, and everyone heard him shout when Edgar collapsed, but goddamn if he isn’t clinging to that last bit of control like it’s all he has left in the world. 

“He’s too good for me,” Jimmy says quietly, echoing Johnny’s words from the other day. His chest hurts. Can werewolves get sick? Tenna and Devi had explained it to him back when he’d first joined, but he hadn’t been paying a ton of attention to be honest. Back then he’d still been infatuated with Johnny.

Tess looks furious. “Did he say that?”

“No!” Jimmy says, and Tenna glances over from what is apparently a boring argument with Johnny about making room for plumbing. Jimmy flips her off, and she rolls her eyes and looks away.

“No,” Jimmy says in a lower voice. “It’s just the truth.”

“Listen,” Tess says. “Tenna and Devi are both miles out of my league, no, don’t interrupt me.” Jimmy closes his mouth and crosses his arms. “Tenna and Devi are both way out of my league, but Devi thinks we’re both too good for her, and Tenna thinks we could do better. A lot of times, you don’t know why someone so out of your league picked you and vice versa, so you just roll with it and live together in confused bliss. If Edgar actually thinks he’s too good for you, then fuck him- not like that, Jesus Christ. You deserve someone who loves you for you.”

Jimmy’s smirk slides right off his face. “Who the fuck said anything about love?”

Tess looks at him over her glasses in a way that would’ve done his high school librarian proud, and Jimmy’s face burns all over again. “I don’t love him,” he mutters.

“Of course not,” she says and ruffles his hair, which probably offends Jimmy more than her tone. “Let’s go see what all the excitement is about.”

The excitement turns out to still be about the plumbing, which is about as far from exciting as it gets in Jimmy’s book. As soon as he convinces Edgar that there is, in fact, a difference between working with pipes instead of wires, he goes over to sit by Todd, ignoring a pointed look from Tess and a deep scowl from Johnny.

He likes Todd a lot, actually. More than he thought he would’ve. The kid’s quiet, but wicked smart and great at making up stories on the fly. Really, he’s about the exact opposite of Jimmy at that age. He can’t imagine a world where Todd would get in trouble for anything, and Jimmy had spend more time in in school suspension than out. He also can’t imagine Todd getting a black eye from the tallest girl in the grade after pushing her friend off the monkey bars, but he’s pretty sure that’s a personal problem. There’s probably something somewhere about trauma and psychology out there to explain why they’re different, but Jimmy doesn’t know or care. He just likes Todd.

They’re in the middle of talking about movies (Jimmy never understood the need to censor himself around kids until now, holy shit) when Todd asks, “ Why do you hate Nny?”

Jimmy stops mid word and quickly tries to think back to if he said anything to prompt this. “Why do you ask?” he asks slowly.

Todd gives him a look. “You’re avoiding the question. Nny says people do that when they’re lying.”

Smart little fucker. Jimmy glances at Johnny, oozing smugness, and tries to ignore the fact that fifteen feet away from Johnny is a terrible place to have a conversation about him. The air’s gone still with tension. At least he’s less likely to be murdered sitting next to Todd. 

“I don’t hate him,” Jimmy sighs. Hopefully that’ll be enough for the kid.

“Well,” Todd says, “you aren’t very nice to each other.”

Jimmy’s not quite sure how to respond to that, but unfortunately, he doesn’t have to.

“I am too nice to him!” Johnny interrupts.

Edgar and Devi both wince, and Tenna makes an unsure noise. Tess takes her glasses off and rubs her forehead with the back of her hand.

“Bullshit you are!” Jimmy snaps. “You’ve been a dick since day fucking one.”

“Don’t swear,” Johnny says mildly.

“Don’t change the subject!” Jimmy pushes himself to his feet so he can glare properly. Johnny looks unimpressed.

“There’s no subject to change,” Johnny says. “I’ve been nice, and you’re being preposterous.”

Jimmy takes a deep breath. His heart’s going a million miles an hour and it feels like a pit’s opened in his stomach, but he’s not scared.

“Edgar,” Jimmy says slowly, “could you take Todd upstairs?”

“Um,” Edgar says, glancing at Johnny.

“Don’t tell Edgar what to do with my kid,” Johnny says.

“He’s not your kid.” It’s a stupid thing to say, but it lets Todd scurry over to Edgar so they both can leave before Johnny makes a move like he’s going to tear Jimmy’s face off. Tess grabs his arm.

“How dare you!” Johnny screeches, clawed fingers straining at Jimmy. “I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Yeah, that’s real fucking nice of you,” Jimmy sneers. “Kinda like leaving me to bleed to death in an alley.”

Johnny stops fighting Tess’s grip and wrinkles his nose. “I knew you’d survive.”

Jimmy snorts. “Bull fucking shit you did.”

“I don’t see what you’re so upset about,” Johnny says with a delicate sniff. “You’ve turned out as close to fine as a morally bankrupt little weevil like yourself-”

The fury that’s been simmering in the back of Jimmy’s mind for months surges up into a rolling boil, hot and sick enough to make him want to crawl out of his skin. He feels compressed, closed up in his body with nowhere to go and nothing to do to get rid of the horrible burning but scream before he throws up.

“Shut up,” Jimmy snarls. “Just shut up.” By some miracle, Johnny shuts up. “It turned out _fine_? I was homeless for a month, I nearly starved, I had no idea what was happening to me, and you think it turned out _fine_?”

He’s vaguely aware of the others staring at him, but all he can see is the malicious contempt carved into Johnny’s face. He hates him. He wants to see him bleed, wants to see Johnny as scared as he was.

“Forgive me for thinking a twenty year old could manage himself on even the most basic level,” Johnny says.

Jimmy wants to scream. His chest aches with something molten. “I needed more help than that and you know it! You knew it then and you know it now, you should have _helped me_.”

Johnny snorts and crosses his arms. Jimmy feels like the earth’s crust, plate tectonics, cracking apart to spill out white hot, spitting anger.

“You knew what it was like for me!” Jimmy shouts. “You knew where I came from! What they did to me! I crawled to you with a broken rib and _begged_ you to help me!”

“I did-”

“You bi-”

“Jimmy!” Tess cuts him off and points upstairs, to where Edgar is hiding with Squee. He isn’t sure if he wants Edgar here right now. Would Edgar take his side or Johnny’s?

“You bit me,” Jimmy bites out at a lower volume. “You bit me and you left me with nothing but your fucking name and powers I didn’t know how to control. I thought I was dying.”

“You were fine,” Johnny says.

“That’s not the point!”

“Then what is?”

“You left!” To Jimmy’s horror, his voice breaks. “I thought you were going to help me, and you left!”

“I didn’t owe you anything,” Johnny says. “I _don’t_ owe you anything.”

For some reason, that’s the thing that makes Jimmy feel like he’s been slapped. All that burning fury, all the nauseating hatred, snaps cold and stiff into a little ball pressing into his sternum. The tears that had been threatening retreat as quickly as they’d come.

“Fine,” Jimmy says. “Fine.” He looks at the others, taking the fear and confusion on each of their faces. “I found Johnny because my parents were kicking the shit out of me. I begged him to help, and when he agreed, he turned me and left me completely alone. Worst part is, I still tried, for a long time. I fucking bent over backwards for you.” He scowls at Johnny again. “What are you going to do when Todd gets older? Are you going to abandon him too?”

Tess’s sharp “Jimmy!” is mostly drowned out by Johnny’s wordless scream of fury. Tenna and Devi hold him still, but they look stunned. Upstairs is ominously quiet. Jimmy meets Tess’s worried gaze.

“I’m going for a walk.” He’s out the door before she can stop him.

***

Edgar lasts until he hears the door slam. He leaves Todd watching the first cartoon he finds and tears down the metal staircase and through the office. He hasn’t felt this kind of yawning dread since sitting in the hospital waiting room, freshly eighteen, confused, and needing his mom. It doesn’t make sense, feeling that same fear now, but he hasn’t cared about anyone in so long, it’s killing him to hear the fighting. There was something so shattered in Jimmy’s indistinct words, he knows something terrible will happen if Jimmy just _leaves_.

“Where’d he go?” Edgar asks. He can’t look at Johnny, mostly limp and glaring between Tenna and Devi, not with that animalistic howl and Jimmy’s voice echoing in his head.

“Left,” Tess says. She looks shell shocked in the emotional wreckage of the store, but Edgar can’t spare her more than an understanding nod before he’s out the door.

He runs. He doesn’t know where, doesn’t know what’s guiding him, he just knows that he has to find Jimmy. Vague impressions of weaving through back roads and alleys flit through his head like carelessly thrown matches. The sky is darkening earlier than usual under a blanket of heavy clouds. It’s going to rain soon. A glint of light on a familiar boot buckle catches his eye before disappearing down a side street.

“Jimmy!” Edgar cries, and rounds the corner. Jimmy freezes halfway up a fire escape, a shadow caught in the iron. Even from here, it’s clear he’s wound tight. Edgar imagines him shaking apart.

“Go away.” It’s quiet, so quiet it almost doesn’t carry except for the way it sounds like stone dragged over stone.

“Come down,” Edgar says around panting breaths. “You don’t have to go back, just come down.”

“Did Tess send you?”

What? “No,” Edgar says. “I’m worried. I mean, she’s worried too, we’re all worried-”

Jimmy lets out a harsh, bitter laugh and drops back onto the third floor balcony. “You fucking sure about that? I don’t think Johnny-” he spits the name like venom “-is too fucking worried about me. Probably hoping I get myself killed.”

“Jimmy.” Edgar feels sick. “Please, come down. We don’t have to go back, I just want you to be safe. _Please_.”

That makes Jimmy look down at him, cold front anger giving way to something just a little softer and a little curious. Relief and hope and violent protectiveness hit Edgar like a swift kick in the ribs. He just wants Jimmy safe. He wants to _keep_ Jimmy safe.

Asphalt and broken glass crunch behind them. Jimmy’s eyes move first, head snapping to the sound as if he’d been expecting it, but Edgar is slower to turn. Four men stand in the entrance, thin but corded with lean muscle. Ink stabs over knuckles and necks and faces, and the way they’re glaring makes Edgar think of roaming packs of starving dogs. He swallows. His throat is very dry.

“What are you doing in our alley?” The middle one asks. He looks utterly unremarkable, messy hair and ratty clothes, except for the very obvious grip of a gun sticking out of the waistband of his jeans.

“Your alley?” Edgar repeats, like an idiot.

A different man jerks his head at one of the many intricate symbols painted on the wall next to Edgar. “Our alley.”

“Oh, yes, I see, um,” Edgar stutters. He’s not familiar with this area of the city, not really, but it’s obvious he’s bumbled his way into an almost comically bad situation. Small plus side: they haven’t noticed Jimmy. “I got lost.”

It’s not technically a lie, but it sounds weak to his own ears. Clearly the other men agree.

“Lost.” The first one repeats. He doesn’t sound like an idiot. The black gleam of the gun certainly helps.

“Yes,” Edgar says, and sees at least one switchblade flick open. “Look, I don’t want any trouble. I’m a teacher. I’ll give you my money and go.”

They visibly perk up at that, hounds on a scent. The first man nods. “Hand it over.”

Edgar shoves his hand in his pocket and finds nothing but lint. He checks his other pockets. Shit. Oh, shit shit shit shit _fuck_. His wallet is still at the bookshop, sitting on the checkout counter from fishing out a few dollars for the pizza they were supposed to have for dinner. Fuck. Tremors shake his hands, and he really might throw up. 

“Well,” the second man, the one with the knife, says.

“Um,” Edgar says, voice several octaves higher than usual. The first man begins to move towards Edgar, and he scrambles back.

Something large and black drops into the space between them, stopping the man in his tracks. Jimmy straightens up without brushing himself off, and Edgar gapes at him. A three story drop should’ve broken at least an ankle, right? Bones weren’t supposed to work like that, were they? The earlier dread starts creeping back in, more acute than ever.

“Leave him alone,” Jimmy growls, and really, there is no other word for it. He sounds like he’s been gargling gravel for the past decade.

To their credit, the men all recover themselves quickly. The one who’d broken away from the group pulls out his gun. “Mind your fucking business.”

“He is my business,” Jimmy says. “Fuck off.”

“Faggot,” one of the other men snorts. Edgar’s breath does something painful in his chest, and he feels it more than anything else when Jimmy’s attention flickers to him for a fraction of a second.

“I’ve had a really fucking shitty day,” Jimmy says. “So fuck the fucking fuck off or I swear on everything you love, I will fucking kill you.”

“Jimmy,” Edgar says weakly. Either no one hears him, or no one cares. The gun cocks, and Edgar’s heart drops. They’re going to die. They’re going to die and the only people who will miss them are reeling from whatever that fucking fight was about. Tears prick Edgar’s eyes, and he thinks of his mom. If they die, he thinks selfishly, he wants to die first. He can’t handle losing someone else he cares about again, even if it’s only for a moment.

“Try it,” the man with the gun says. “You’ll be dead before you take a step.”

Jimmy doesn’t move, and for a moment, Edgar thinks maybe he’s changed his mind, that things will deescalate and they’ll be okay.

Except Jimmy _is_ moving. At first it just looks like he’s shaking, but then it changes. There’s no words to describe it, at least, none that Edgar can find. It’s like watching a flower bloom in fast forward, the rolling and spasming of muscles. Jimmy’s shirt tears, joints pop in and out of place, and Edgar swears he hears bones break. A low, inhuman noise escapes Jimmy’s mouth, which is now long and misshapen and full of cruelly pointed teeth. He stops moving, and even without the Hollywood fur or tail or black nose, the shape of Jimmy’s legs and clawed hands come to rest on the dirty ground leave no doubt in Edgar’s mind.

Werewolf.

His legs look the most canine, more like haunches than anything. His spine curls forward into sloping shoulders and strangely elongated arms. The new shape of his skull and mouth full of teeth mean there’s no way Jimmy could talk, but the sound he makes sends terror up Edgar’s spine more effectively than words ever could. 

“What the fuck,” one of the men says. A knife clatters to the ground.

“Jimmy,” Edgar breathes.

Jimmy’s lips pull back over his teeth, and he makes another snarling noise, louder this time. Edgar feels it all the way to his bones. It makes his hair stand on end. The men turn around and run. Jimmy sinks into a crouch, and unmistakable pounce, and Edgar can finally move.

He rushes in front of Jimmy and grabs his shoulders. He’s bigger than Edgar now, though not by much, and light reflects flatly across his eyes. They stare at each other for what could’ve been years or fractions of seconds before finally, Jimmy relaxes. The movements of the bones and muscles under Edgar’s fingers feels wrong, alien, even as he stares at Jimmy’s familiar, hazy summer sky eyes.

“Jimmy,” Edgar says. He feels like a scratched cd, but it’s all he can think to say. Jimmy blinks.

Then he’s gone, launched onto the roof in one graceful leap.

“Wait!” Edgar yells after him. He swears and sprints out of the alley onto the main street, scanning the skyline. A flicker of movement darting to the right a few buildings over catches his eye, and he runs after it without hesitation.

He loses track of how many blocks he chases Jimmy, dodging pedestrians and straining his eyes for any hint of rooftop movement. A couple times he loses him completely and has to hope and pray he hasn’t lost him for good, and twice he catches Jimmy change direction at the last second and has to change direction himself so quickly that he nearly falls. Jimmy keeps away from main roads, thank god, and soon debris, hidden in the rapidly fading light, becomes a bigger problem than people.

A loose magazine sends Edgar crashing into a wall, knocking the wind out of him and forcing him to stop and suck in air like a fish. His lungs burn like they haven’t in years, and his legs feel like pudding. Christ, he’s never making the student athletes run suicides again. Pain radiates in his shoulder, and he scans the rooftops. They’re in the old manufacturing district, near the construction projects, he thinks. There’s no sign of Jimmy though. Nothing for it but to press on. He starts to run across the street.

Headlights blind him, a horn blares. His feet skitter to a halt, and he instinctively throws up his hands as if that will protect him from the crushing impact.

The impact doesn’t come. 

Something yanks his shirt hard enough to tear it, and he staggers into something warm and much softer than brick or concrete.

“Are you fucking retarded?” Jimmy yells, already retreating several steps. He looks like himself, slim and straight backed and angry.

“Don’t say retarded,” Edgar says automatically.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jimmy barrels on. “Do you have a fucking death wish? That’s the second time tonight I’ve saved your-”

His words are lost as Edgar surges forward and pulls him into a tight hug, looping one arm around his waist and bringing the other up to cradle the back of his head. The smell of sweat and cheap alcohol and cheaper cigarettes fills Edgar’s nose, and he breathes it in gratefully, pressing his face into the crook of Jimmy’s neck. A ragged noise like a dry sob pushes its way out of Edgar’s chest, and after a moment’s hesitation, Jimmy hugs him just as fiercely.

“I thought we were going to die,” Edgar says. He’s never letting go of Jimmy’s warmth, the rapid rise and fall of his ribs under his hands, the hummingbird flutter of his heartbeat, he can’t let go.

“You absolute motherfucker,” Jimmy gasps. “Don’t fucking do that, you _scared_ me.”

Edgar pulls back to stare at him as he launches into a detailed explanation into exactly how Edgar took several decades off his already short lifespan, and maybe it’s the adrenaline, but Jimmy looks incandescent in the glow of a waning moon and sparse streetlights. 

“Can I kiss you?”

“What?” Jimmy breaks off mid word.

“Can I kiss you?” Edgar repeats.

“I,” Jimmy hesitates, like he’s waiting for a punchline. “Okay. Yeah.”

He makes no move, so Edgar carefully tilts their mouths together, moving like he’s in slow motion. Jimmy’s lips are chapped in the middle, but the edges are feather soft and perfect under Edgar’s own lips. They’re also very still.

Edgar pulls back, worried Jimmy’s changed his mind, but before he can move more than an inch, Jimmy makes a breathy little noise like he’s been stabbed and pulls Edgar back down. He takes advantage of Edgar’s yelp and shoves his tongue into his mouth, artless and desperate. It’s far from the best kiss Edgar’s ever had, but somehow it is good because it’s _Jimmy_. 

Wonderful, reckless, furious, passionate, sarcastic Jimmy making aborted, needy noises against Edgar’s lips. Under the cigarettes and booze, he tastes sweet, like soda or candy, all addictive and heady. Edgar’s fingers find the new hole along the back of Jimmy’s shirt and eagerly press into hot skin.

Jimmy wrenches his head back with a moan so loud Edgar automatically shushes him. The look Jimmy gives him is worth it. He leans in for another kiss, more restrained this time, guiding him back against a wall with firm hands and gently nipping teeth. 

_Cruelly pointed teeth_

It’s Edgar who pulls back this time. “Wait.”

Jimmy goes stiff, tensed up, undoubtedly ready to run. He doesn’t say anything.

“You can-” Edgar stops and shakes his head, resting his cheek on top of Jimmy’s head and rubbing soothing circles on his back. “You’re a-”

He can’t say it. It’s too insane, even though he saw it with his own eyes.

“Werewolf,” Jimmy supplies.

Edgar nods and holds Jimmy tighter against his chest. He listens to Jimmy’s breathing until it’s slow and even, though his muscles are still tense. “How long?”

“Seven months, give or take.” Jimmy shrugs. His shoulders relax ever so slightly lower.

“Who bit-” Edgar winces and belatedly realizes that Jimmy can feel his expressions. Any relaxation in him vanishes. “Are the others?”

Jimmy pulls away, just enough to look Edgar in the eye, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. “I, um. I think we need to have a group meeting.”

***

**Pissbaby has entered the chat.**

**Pissbaby has changed his name to Jimmy.**

**Jimmy:** _guys i fucked up real bad_

***

_It takes Jimmy months to find The Wolf, and when he does, it’s an accident. Actually, it’s pretty much like the first time he saw him. Jimmy, sitting heavily on a box full of god knows what and resigning himself to another wasted night, rubs his burning eyes. His rib aches like a motherfucker, and he thunks his head against the wall._

_By pure chance, his head rolls to the left, and he sees The Wolf backing out of an alley. He freezes. Blood and viscera drip from curled hands and sharp teeth, black in the low light, bones pushing against skin at all the wrong angles. As Jimmy watches, The Wolf’s skin moves and shudders like an ocean storm, and he shrinks down, down into a tiny, almost delicate looking man in tattered shorts. It’s hard to tell, but he doesn’t look much older than Jimmy._

_The man who was The Wolf opens a garbage can and begins rummaging, pulling out a plastic bag tied shut. He tears it open and uses some kind of rag to begin wiping some of the blood off his hands and face, leaving streaky, black looking marks in his wake. Boots come out next, really cool ones that Jimmy would kill to get, before The Wolf pulls a shirt over his head, ruffling a rat’s nest of black hair. All the while he mutters words Jimmy can’t make out._

_“Holy shit,” Jimmy breathes._

_The Wolf’s head whips around, eyes narrowed, and pins Jimmy like a bug with his gaze. Terror seizes Jimmy, and he presses himself back against the wall as The Wolf stalks towards him._

_“What did you see?” he demands. Jimmy tries to stutter something, but the words won’t come out. “What did you see?”_

_“Nothing!” Jimmy says, which, yeah, not his best lie. He doesn’t think The Wolf will kill him. The Wolf never kills anyone who doesn’t deserve it, Jimmy knows, he’s checked. Jimmy’s never hurt anyone, not really, The Wolf won’t kill him._

_“Why are you following me?” The Wolf demands. He’s close enough now that Jimmy can smell the gore on his skin. “Did The Bitch send you?”_

_He says ‘The Bitch’ the same way Jimmy says ‘The Wolf,’ all proper nouns and shit, like a name. Unless he’s talking about his mom though, Jimmy doesn’t have a clue who he’s talking about._

_“No,” Jimmy says quickly. “I need your help. My name’s Jimmy.”_

_That knocks some of the anger out of The Wolf, though not the suspicion. He regards Jimmy coolly with big, dark eyes. Up close, he’s not as pale as Jimmy had thought, much more brown, even if he clearly doesn’t see much sun. Under the blood smears, his face is really pretty, all knife blade edges against fine curves._

_“You must be a special kind of fool to think I can help you.” The Wolf turns his back and moves towards his bloody rags._

_Relief and disappointment war in Jimmy’s chest, and he stands up. “Wait!”_

_A bottle rolls under Jimmy’s foot and sends him crashing to the ground. Pain radiates out from his rib and little cuts on his hands, and he can’t stop a tiny gasp of pain escaping him. The Wolf turns back to look at him. The look on his face isn’t quite suspicion anymore, it’s… concern, a sort of cool, detached kind. His eyes focus on Jimmy’s waist, and Jimmy realizes belatedly that his shirt has ridden up, revealing black and purple radiating across his skin._

_“Who did that?” The Wolf asks._

_“No one,” Jimmy lies, pushing himself up onto his elbow. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”_

_The Wolf snorts. “Don’t lie to me. Your whole putrid form reeks of pain and fear.”_

_Jimmy doesn’t know what putrid means, but he knows what reek means, so it’s probably an insult. He doesn’t have time to be offended though, because The Wolf picks his way back over to Jimmy. He scrambles back, away from those stained hands, and pulls his shirt down over the bruise. Ignoring Jimmy’s panicked protests, The Wolf crouches down inches away from him, and Jimmy freezes._

_With fingers so thin the knuckles almost seem swollen, The Wolf reaches for Jimmy. All of Jimmy’s half formed protests die before leaving his mouth as The Wolf, careful not to touch skin, plucks a wrinkle in Jimmy’s shirt and moves the fabric to inspect the watercolor mash of bruises on his side. His expression darkens. Jimmy knows how he looks, entire left side one giant bruise. The very edges are just starting to go bluish green, and there’s a spot around his lower rib cage where the skin burning hot and too tender to touch._

_It’s that spot that The Wolf zeroes in on, brushing over it with stained fingers. Jimmy flinches away, hissing. The Wolf’s fingers are hot, hotter than the bruise, and he lets Jimmy swat his hands away and hide the bruise again. They stare at each other for a long time_

_“I’m not weak,” Jimmy says finally._

_“I never said you were,” The Wolf says. “Who did this?”_

_Jimmy shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter, I just need to leave. You have to help me.”_

_“No.” The Wolf stands. He goes back to his plastic bag and begins stuffing bloody clothes back into it. Panic slams into Jimmy, and he pulls himself up to lean against the wall, still mostly crouched with one arm curled protectively around his side._

_“Wait,” he says, too loudly in the space between late night and early morning. “Please. It’s my parents, they- they-” his fingers twitch next to his ribs. “I can’t stay there anymore. I want to be like you.”_

__

__

_The Wolf puts his bag back in the trash can and tilts his head like he’s working on a very difficult problem. Jimmy’s stomach clenches._

_“You want to be a monster,” The Wolf says. “To curse yourself to the shadows and stay lonely forever.”_

_Jimmy shrugs. “I’m already there. Can’t get much worse.”_

_“Very well.” The Wolf nods, and Jimmy feels like he’s making a deal with the devil. Sticking out his hand, The Wolf’s smile is full of razor sharp teeth. “My name is Johnny, but you can call me Nny.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for those of you who done know, suicides are a warm up/exercise where you have to sprint out to a certain, short distance and very quickly turn around and run back to the start, with ever increasing distances. i'm like eighty percent sure you had to touch the ground when you changed direction, but that might've just been because middle school nat had the balance of a baby giraffe. anyway, they're called suicides for a reason and i hated them


End file.
